


Mending What's Broken

by yourrhinestoneeyes



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Depression, Drug Use, M/M, Pain, Pickles/Nathan later on, Regret, Romance, Sex, break ups, doomstar requiem era, mentions of abuse and Magnus being a douche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-15 05:11:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 36,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2216967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourrhinestoneeyes/pseuds/yourrhinestoneeyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They both said things that in the long run they didn't mean to say, things that in a week or two they would be willing to forgive and forget over. Just not always does life give you the chance to make up tomorrow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Break Up

Skwisgaar wrapped his legs around the younger man's back drawing him closer, drawing him in deeper. Fuck he needed this, needed him. Sharp teeth bit into the side of his neck, he tilted his head to the side exposing more of his neck to the younger musician. Toki's nails dug into his hips forming crescent shaped bruises in pale flesh. Skwisgaar moaned, his lover's name falling from his lips like a desperate prayer. He met him thrust for thrust, arms wrapped around his neck and fingers digging into his scarred back. Toki kissed him roughly, he swallowed every moan and desperate plea for him to fuck him harder. Skwisgaar wanted to feel everything, he wanted to be fucked until he was seeing stars and couldn't walk for a week. He knew the younger musician was one of the very few men he could count to give that to him. With each hard deep thrust he hit against Skwisgaar's prostate, each shock of pleasure bringing him closer to cumming. He bucked his hips when a hand wrapped around his hard cock, squeezing, stroking slowly. Too slowly, he hated being teased. He whined against Toki's lips, the younger man smirked and ran the tip of his tongue along his jawline before biting down on his neck. Close. God he was so fucking close.

He heard a phone ringing somewhere on the floor. The younger man's thrusts slowed to a stop, Toki glanced towards the phone laying on the floor.

“Don't you fucking dare answer that.” Skwisgaar said voice thick, breathing uneven.

Toki looked from him to the phone again, “What if it's something important?”

“I don't care, I'm really fucking close right now. Please Toki”

The brunette was looking at the still ringing phone again, he muttered a quick 'sorry' as he pulled out of the older musician and went to retrieve the phone from the floor. Skwisgaar flopped down onto his back groaning, his dick was hard to the point that it hurt and he swore he could start crying from the frustration he was feeling right now. 

“Hello? Oh hi Mag-hey”

Skwisgaar raised his head now less focused on his painful arousal and more interested in his partner's phone conversation. He watched as the younger man tried to pull his jeans on while cradling the phone against his shoulder and carrying on a not as quiet as he figured phone conversation.

“I'm not busy....Yeah I can, we can hang out tomorrow.” 

Toki looked towards Skwisgaar, he looked nervous and guilty when he met the older man's questioning gaze. 

The blond watched as his boyfriend left the room closing the door behind him. All thoughts of getting off were out the window at this point.

Skwisgaar retrieved his pants from the floor and pulled them back on, he sat back down waiting for Toki to come back into the room. Unless he just went somewhere else after he got done talking to Magnus. How dumb did he think Skwisgaar was, he knew who he was talking to. He spent half of his time going between Dr. Rockso and Magnus, but mostly Magnus. They had told him multiple times to stay away from the band's ex-guitarist, never exactly why. They didn't want to explain it, they didn't really want to think about it. Back after Magnus had been kicked out of the band they just agreed to forget him, to not bring him up again amongst themselves or whatever asshole they replaced him with. Up until a couple of months ago they had been doing very good with that, but now it seemed hard to avoid.

When Toki came back into the room he kept his eyes on the floor, brown hair falling over his shoulders and hiding his face from view so he didn't have to look at Skwisgaar.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Nobody”

“Bull shit you were talking to Magnus.”

“So what if I was?” He countered finally feeling brave enough to look the older man in the eye.

“We keep telling you to stay away from him Tokis, he's not....You don't need to be around him.”

Magnus was crazy, violently crazy; Skwisgaar still had marks to prove how violently crazy he could be with his 'friends'.

“Why not, you keep saying that, but never tell me what the fuck it means.” 

“He's a crap person, alright? He's a lying abusive asshole who treats people like shit.”

“Hm sounds really familiar.” Toki replied, he crossed his arms over his chest as he glared down at the blond haired man.

Skwisgaar stood up from the bed and approached him.

“Are you still whining about that, I told you I'm sorry. I'm really fucking sorry.”

“Yeah I'm still whining about that, you made me feel like shit.”

“You ruined my fucking career.” Skwisgaar yelled.

“You made me feel like shit for nearly five years, it's the least I could fucking do.”

Skwisgaar sighed heavily, they didn't need to have this fight again. He didn't really want to think about that, growing list of things he didn't need or want to think about.

“Just....Just stay away from Magnus, please I really mean it Toki.” He said voice softer this time.

Toki still looked angry with him, he wasn't letting his guard down or listening to what Skwisgaar had to say on the subject. Why the hell did it seem like everybody hated each other anymore?

“Why?”

“He's a bad person, we've all told you that.”

“That isn't a fucking reason. At least he wants to be around me, he doesn't demean me, and he treats me like a person. He doesn't treat me like I'm in the fucking way or like I don't belong.”

Hurt and hate wavered in light colored blue eyes as he looked up at the taller man, daring him to say or do the wrong thing to push this over the line.

“He doesn't care about you, he's just out for himself.”

“How dare you say that, you don't even know him. You guys just tossed him to the side and replaced him.”

“We had to, he wasn't doing any good for the band.”

“He's my friend, he understands how I feel. If I want to hang out with him then I will.”

Skwisgaar didn't want to see him get hurt, Toki was always getting hurt. Physical pain he could handle, he could handle it rather fine, but it was the emotional pain that seemed to be wearing him down to nothing. Skwisgaar didn't want to see what would happen to him when Magnus finally turned on him, what there would be left if anything at all.

“I don't want to see you hurt, you're acting like a fucking child. Just listen to me for once, I'm telling you this to help you.”

“So now you want to help me and now you care about me, maybe I don't need you anymore. Maybe I found somebody who actually gives a shit and actually wants what's best for me. All you fucking do is what benefits you, you don't really give a shit about me.”

“That has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say.” Skwisgaar said.

For a second he expected Toki to punch him.

“Fuck you Skwisgaar. I'm through with this....I can't deal with this anymore, any of this. Pickles and Nathan won't talk, you've been a bastard to me lately and now you suddenly care about me? Fuck that, I don't fucking need you. I have a friend who actually cares about me now, I don't need this.”

His tone of voice said that he was done, fed up; everybody was fed up lately. Fed up with each other, with the electric tension going through their mansion. Nobody could be in a room with one another without it ending in a fight or somebody storming out. Skwisgaar had hoped him and Toki could salvage something; they fought a lot, they always had, but it never lasted long. It never felt like it meant anything beyond a few harsh words, maybe a fist fight, and then they would be okay again. This felt different; nobody wanted to mend what was breaking before their eyes.

“What do you mean by that?” Skwisgaar asked, he knew, but he wanted to hear it.

“I'm....I'm ending whatever this is, I want to say that we're dating, but we aren't. I can't even really say that we're friends, I hate your fucking guts. I don't want to be around you anymore, I'm done feeling like shit.”

Skwisgaar watched as he turned and started to walk away.

“Fine fucking be a baby over this, I don't fucking need you either. You think Magnus is going to be there for you, you're a fucking idiot. He'll use you then he's going to turn on you, don't fucking expect me to be here for you when it happens.” Skwisgaar yelled after him.

Toki slammed the door shut behind him.

It's funny how deafening silence is when somebody realizes exactly how alone they are.


	2. World Ending

Their band was ending. Skwisgaar was in utter shock over the news; literally everything in his life was falling down around him. His best friend stopped talking to him completely, he was losing his band which had become like a family to him over the years, and even losing his home. He could find another band, there was always another band wanting the world's fastest guitar player, but he didn't want another band. He wanted this band; he wanted to go back to the days where they were happy. He wanted to go back to talking to one another, laughing, and fucking around. He didn't want this. He didn't want his world to end.

It took no time at all for him to figure out that nobody was there for him. Nathan was off with Knubbler working on a new project, a better project. Pickles was off trying to do something else entirely, and when Toki wasn't hanging around Murderface he was out with Magnus. Skwisgaar found himself going between Nathan and Pickles mostly, Toki wouldn't have a damn thing to do with him and in turn that meant Murderface was also giving him the silent treatment. He felt like shit about what had happened, things hadn't been right for a long time. Skwisgaar had hoped in a way they had been picking up the pieces; that they were working on mending what was left of their fucked up complicated relationship, but it seemed things were only getting worse. He had just been too wrapped up in himself, in distancing himself so as to not get hurt to notice that it was all going to crash and burn sooner than later. 

Skwisgaar didn't deal with being alone well. It made him nervous and anxious; it made him think back to times when his mom left him alone far too many times. Even the strangers he brought into his bedroom to forget his friends were all abandoning on what they had worked so hard on couldn't distract him or ease the anxiety building up inside of him. He could tell nobody wanted this. Nobody wanted the band to end, nobody wanted to leave Mordhaus and go out into a world they forgot how to get along in. The five of them always relied on one another, but now they were killing that. He wanted to tell them how stupid and selfish this was, how selfish they all were being. Nobody wanted to talk, nobody wanted to listen. Normally he would just go to Toki, talk to him, and spend time with him. He knew this had to be fucking him up just as badly if not worse, but he couldn't confirm that. When they were in rooms together Toki would promptly get up and leave, when Skwisgaar would go to his room Toki would lock the door and wait for him to go away, and when he tried calling him he wouldn't answer. 

Being alone was not something that Skwisgaar was fond of and having his four friends turn their backs on him and each other was killing him. Who knew how much worse it could get?

 

Before their final show he had dumbly allowed himself some semblance of hope that things would be okay again. That Nathan would suck it up and admit that he fucked up, that he was sorry. He knew Nathan felt bad, he could tell by the way he was acting. Nobody wanted to see the band end. Playing and knowing it was the last time filled him with a feeling of panic, he felt like his heart would burst through his chest at any minute. If there hadn't been thousands of people watching them then he would have burst into tears knowing this would be the last time he would ever play alongside his friends. His only friends. His family.

Then everything turned dark, almost as if they stepped into another dimension or a morbid horror film. He didn't remember much, just thinking it was a Hellish nightmare when that large demonic man like creature came. That thing with tendrils of white hair and black pouring from its gaping mouth. When the head of the record company was killed protecting them, saving their lives. 

When they were in relative safety the looks on his friends faces told him that he wasn't the only one in shock about what had just taken place. The knowing look on Ofdensen's face as he led them underground into a large cave that seemed to host its own village worth of people told him there were a million things they needed to know. The feeling of being trapped inside of a terrible nightmare that made no sense at all didn't leave him. It stayed firmly planted in the forefront of his mind. He could only listen to the bearded old man as he talked about the church of the blackklok, about prophecies, and about how they were descendants of Gods. Skwisgaar could only think of dreams he'd had about warriors adorning white armor and wielding pristine blades. He could only think of dreams where he ran alongside white wolves that at some time in his past used to run after him, but now they were loyal to him. He thought of all the times he felt more than human, more than what his mother made him feel he was. He always figured it was self indulgent dreaming to think of himself as something beyond human, something better. Something important.

He was still shaken from all the death, from nearly dying, their final show, and the death of the head of the record label. There were too many thoughts rushing around his head to the point he felt he could vomit. Not having his guitar with him was driving him crazy, his fingers felt numb. He could hear talking, but he didn't take in all of it; he was too busy in his own mind. The only thing that brought him back remotely was when the talking stopped and when he felt fingers brush against his own. He looked down at his hand, at the shorter fingers caressing his knuckles then up into ice blue eyes. Toki didn't say anything, he just looked at him reflecting the confusion and fear Skwisgaar was feeling. He expected to be kissed, forgiven, but it never happened. Toki walked away and the blond haired man promptly followed him. Everybody was silent, somehow more silent than they had been before. Nobody was in the mood for talking; there was too much to process. When he chanced glances at Nathan he could tell that the front man knew something. By the concentrated look on his face, the fear in his green eyes Skwisgaar could tell he knew a lot, but he wouldn't talk about it.

Skwisgaar could scream at them, at everybody. He was sick of nobody talking, he was sick of people knowing things, but never sharing. He was reeling from the fact the world was ending, they were nearly killed by some Godless Man, they were part of a prophecy, and even after all of that their band was still ending. He could only wonder what now.

It wasn't until they got back to Mordhaus did he figure out what now.

The vodka went nicely with the meth that he kept stashed beneath his bed for times like these.


	3. We Need to Talk

Even after such Earth shattering revelations and the death of yet another man who had guided them in their musical career they were not talking. The silence going through Mordhaus turned from one of hate filled tension to something heavy and depressing Skwisgaar could practically feel the fear in the air, he could see it in his friends eyes the few times he came into contact with them. They didn't want to speak, they didn't want to be near one another. That had not changed despite developments; despite the fact that there was to be a funeral very soon. Skwisgaar wasn't looking forward to it, he wasn't looking forward to his future. He had stubbornly hoped time and time again that something would change. He had came close to breaking nihilist beliefs and praying that something would keep his band from ending. He couldn't lose this, this was security; this make shift home and family made up for the love and comfort that had been taken from him as a child. Anymore this place felt as cold and self loathing as his mother's home in Sweden. He felt isolated; alcohol helped to ease the pain of that. Being alone brought a chill with it that filled you up on the inside. The burn of vodka filled him with a false sense of warmth, of feeling something besides an overwhelming sadness. 

He quickly took notice that ever since what happened Toki had became somehow even closer with Magnus. He didn't even know that were humanly possible, but apparently it was. Most of his time was spent out, away from the others. They refused to let the ex-guitarist onto the property, Skwisgaar always felt uneasy and worried each time Toki went out with the older man. He still didn't trust him, but he knew better than to voice that feeling. Even though he had known Magnus longer, knew what he had been like and most probably still was like he knew better than to say a damned thing. If he hadn't said anything in the first place then him and Toki would be at least on speaking terms. Skwisgaar thought back to being in that cave, the younger man's fingers brushing against his hand and the fearful look in his eyes. That had been the most contact they'd had ever since their fight and literally nothing after that brief moment of vulnerability. 

Skwisgaar didn't want to spend his time this way. He wanted everybody to be together, but that wouldn't happen. He had hoped he would at least have Toki by his side, but he had fucked that up for himself. He didn't know how to fix it, fix anything even if it was just a temporary fix he wasn't sure what to do. Skwisgaar didn't know how to admit how much he hated being this alone, how much he constantly needed to be around people or at least have one person by his side. Somebody who actually knew him, who knew how awkward and fragile and completely immature he was more times than not. Toki was his closest friend, that was something rare for him, losing close friends wasn't so rare on the other hand. Back when he was a kid he lost them for completely different reasons, as an adult he lost his friends, because he pushed them away. He hurt them, betrayed them, and apparently abused them. He couldn't work it out in his brain why he did these things, why it made sense to him that these were the ways to keep those he loved by his side, but it felt like it worked. His mother had always used guilt and demeaning remarks to keep Skwisgaar loyally by her side, but he had eventually run far away from her. He shouldn't be surprised people he loved left him after some time.

His phone went off pulling him from dark vodka induced thoughts. He picked it up from the edge of the bed surprised to see that it was Toki calling him.

“Hello”

There was mostly silence on the other end of the line, he could hear rustling and uneven breathing. 

“Hey Skwisgaar” The younger man finally responded.

From the tone of his voice and the way that it trembled he wondered if he was crying. 

“Why are you calling me?”

“I'm not really sure....Nobody else will talk to me and Magnus is busy....”

Skwisgaar kept himself from making a remark on the mention of the older musician's name. He hadn't heard Toki talk for awhile now, he wasn't going to get into a second fight and chance never hearing from him again. Bad enough they couldn't be in the same room to have this discussion.

“Why didn't you just come to my room?” 

“I sort of just want to be by myself, but I need somebody to talk to.”

Silence fell between them. He remembered days when they would either talk for hours or they wouldn't talk at all and it would be just fine. He missed playing guitar while his friend listened, he missed that adoration. 

“Toki I think we should talk about what happened.”

“Don't” 

“We need to talk about this, I was only trying to help you.”

“I don't want to talk about this, I'll hang up on you.” Toki warned.

Skwisgaar kept quiet.

He took another drink from the bottle. He wanted to tell him something, anything, or a lot of things. Admit he was a selfish asshole, confess he was in love with him and that scared the Hell out of him. Tell him that he didn't want to lose the band, because his only use in life was guitar and he was scared of what would happen if he lost this one thing. Tell him his fear of being alone, admit he screwed up by pushing everybody away by treating them like crap.

“Do you know how much you mean to me?” Skwisgaar asked, his voice came out small like it was a question he didn't want to voice.

“No” Was the simple response

It was such a flat, one dimensional and hopeless response for somebody who used to look at him with hope filled eyes. 

The alcohol managed to push down the lump in his throat and burn away the aching in his chest. He told himself the tears pricking at his eyes were just from the awful burn the drink left in him. 

“I think we need to talk, not right now...After the funeral maybe, we don't have to talk about Magnus. There's just other things we really need to talk about.”

Skwisgaar didn't want to be alone, he didn't want to permanently lose this one person. He could work on himself, he could work on being less selfish; there was always tomorrow, always time and learning from a lifetime of mistakes. He was willing to work on it.

“I don't know”

“Please, I'll take you somewhere nice, anywhere. I just....I really need to tell you some things and there's just a lot we need to discuss. Please Toki”

Each second without a response made him more and more nervous.

“Aren't you afraid people might get the wrong idea if they see us somewhere together?”

“I don't care about that.”

He just needed to see him, needed to work on making something new. 

“Alright, we can talk after the funeral. Besides that might be the last time we get to see each other anyway.” 

More vodka washed away the urge to cry.

“Right....I'll see you later I guess.”

“Yeah, later Skwisgaar.”

The line went dead, Skwisgaar tossed his phone down onto the bed. He wasn't sure if he felt hopeful or like he was just going to end another chapter in his life that he was far from ready to end. These were people he had known for years, this was the person he loved; he wasn't ready to cut all ties with them.


	4. After the Funeral

Standing on the ground of what had been a funeral, but now appeared to be a make shift battle ground, smoke clouded around so thickly it was nearly impossible to see a thing. Processing the events unfolding was just as impossible as hearing them past the piercing ringing in his ears. He didn't take in all that much past his shock until he heard Nathan and Pickles calling out Toki's name. He hadn't even noticed the rhythm guitarist wasn't with the rest of them, but when a large portion of the smoke settled they spotted him. Skwisgaar didn't remember much, possibly because it would have just killed his sanity if he took in everything that happened in that moment. He recalled Magnus holding the smaller man back, recalled seeing something pointed piercing through Toki's back and coming out on the other side stained with blood. There was blood, a lot of blood and screaming. He couldn't tell who was screaming, Toki was screaming and Abigail too. It all sort of went black after that, he only came back to the present when Murderface was grabbing his arm and dragging him away to follow the rest of their group. His legs felt numb and his heart was pounding frantically. Where was Toki and Abigail, what just happened?

He couldn't even move on his own accord, he only went where his friends dragged him. At some point Pickles had asked him something, had yelled at him to gain his attention but Skwisgaar didn't respond. He was in shock, he knew that much. His mind was still back at the funeral; his mind's eye was still focused in on that shining bit of metal poking through the front of his best friend's body and the look of pain on his face. 

“Dude, c'mon man snap the fuck out of it. Hey Charles says he's probably still alive, they're gonna find him. Alright?”

Skwisgaar stared blankly at the drummer. Their band was back together wasn't it? Too bad they were missing their rhythm guitarist. His mind stayed on the word 'probably', it didn't make him feel better. He figured he should say something or cry, he should scream. There was something in his throat and if he screamed then it would come out and he could feel better, if he screamed loudly enough he would wake up and Toki wouldn't be probably alive, he would be alive. 

“I don't think he's listening.”

“I think he's in shock or something.” Pickles responded looking back at Nathan.

The singer looked over their lead guitarist, he hadn't seen him like this since the last fight between him and Toki. Not that Skwisgaar ever talked a whole lot or paid much attention, but this was different. It was unnerving, it wasn't really a great time to be falling apart.

“You and Murderface take him to his room”

“Why do I have to fucking go, Pickles can take him.” Murderface complained from his spot on the couch.

“Probably because I just told you to and you aren't doing anything fucking useful anyway asshole.”

The bassist quickly got up and joined the drummer in leading their barely coherent guitarist down the hall to his bedroom. Nathan waited until they were out of the living room to sit down on the couch. He ran his fingers back through his hair. This shit was not fucking happening. If he hadn't destroyed the album then this wouldn't be happening, if he hadn't destroyed the album then Pickles never would have gotten pissed off at him, he never would have slept with Abigail because they never would have hired her, and then all of this never would have happened. If Toki and Abigail were dead or ended up dead then it was all his fault. How the Hell was he supposed to be the leader when he couldn't even keep his friends safe or sane?

Nathan wasn't even sure about his own sanity right now. He felt panicked and like he could just bolt at any moment. He wasn't smart or brave enough to deal with all of this.

“Dude you okay?”

The singer looked up towards Pickles, the drummer looked down at him concerned. 

“Fine, yeah fine.” He answered quickly

The older man shook his head, he smiled sadly and sat down beside of the black haired man.

“Right you're as fucking fine as blondie. Look Ofdensen is working on it, he's fucking robotic genius or some shit, and we practically got our own army....So basically there's nothing to worry about.”

Nathan nodded in agreement; Pickles was right, everything was alright. It wasn't a big deal, there was nothing they needed to stress over. Ofdensen was a genius, he could find literally anybody anywhere in the world. It wouldn't be surprising if he ended up finding the two of them by the end of the week.

“Is Skwisgaar alright?”

“Sleeping, not sure how long that is gonna last though....C'mon let's go smoke some pot and watch shit reality TV, get our minds off of this.”

Nathan dutifully followed his friend out of the living room and back to his bedroom. He was more than willing to do anything that would take his mind off of this.

 

Skwisgaar slept longer than expected; by the time that he woke up the sun was rising. He didn't feel rested, he felt disorientated, and everything in his body hurt. He sat up in his bed staring blankly down at the white fur blanket that covered his lower half. He ran through events in his mind, but there were so many blank spots until they caught up with him. They had gone to the funeral, Pickles and Nathan had made up, and then there had been an explosion. They couldn't find Toki, Magnus had him and somebody else had Abigail. It didn't take too long for his mind to remind him of pain filled screams and knives going through bodies of people he knew. He told himself it wasn't real, it was just terrible dreams. Those happened; every once in awhile he had dreams like that, real fucked up ones. Dreams where the world was ending, dreams where all of the light was gone and everything was a never ending void. He even had dreams about himself dying. Why would it be odd to have a dream where he witnessed his best friend dying before his eyes?

He picked up his phone from on the floor.

'Hey, I just had a really bad dream about you. Magnus had stabbed you and I think you might have been dead.' Skwisgaar typed then sent the text.

He sat in the silence of his room for the longest time, a denial fueled part of his mind waiting for a reply. He waited to hear that it sounded like a really bad dream, that he was being an idiot, or he needed to stop thinking so badly of Magnus. He waited for something, but when more and more time passed without a response reality started to seep in like a sludgy black ink flooding a room. The reality hit hard, with one broken sob he buried his face in his hands and started to cry.


	5. No Answer

Each day that passed seemed to move at a crawling pace, every second was pure agony. To find out it had been three weeks just seemed impossible. Skwisgaar couldn't get himself to relax or go into a semblance of a normal routine. It felt to him like every day he was asking if there was any word, nothing. More times than not he would find Nathan sitting on the couch smoking weed and shoving chips into his mouth as he stared at the TV. Sometimes Pickles would be by his side, but other times Skwisgaar would find him in the studio playing drums or slumped over the table in the kitchen drunk off his ass. Murderface kept mostly out of sight, he seemed to be in his usual state of aggravation and violence. Skwisgaar for once didn't mind that attention was off of him, that nobody cared to be around him or check on him. 

He coughed and hacked after another hit from the pipe he had been smoking from. His room smelled like cum and cat piss. He couldn't remember if he'd had sex lately, he was pretty sure that he hadn't. His mind wasn't in it and his body sure as fuck wasn't, the meth he smoked ensured that he couldn't remember a damn thing. His feelings weren't all too stable; he wavered in and out of grief. He would smoke and drink until he was feeling nothing, but there was some pleasant sensation with the lie that the drugs and the alcohol fed him. Something sweet in the way pretty dark haired girls would tell him he was the best, tell him he was gorgeous, and they were grateful to get to fuck him. The days weren't too bad when he could load himself up with drugs and fill his room with people who only cared about a pretty face and talented hands. The nights were what killed him.

Nights he would generally wake up to an empty bed, bottles, pipes, and needles scattered across his bedroom floor that servants would clean before sunrise. If he were lucky he would still have some form of a buzz, his mind would feel heavy and fuzzy. His mouth would be dry and every other breath he took would lead to a coughing fit, he hoped his lungs would just rot. Skwisgaar would sit allowing the darkness and loneliness to consume him, he allowed himself to drown in it. He wanted to drown in the misery that sobriety made him feel. His mind would take him back to funerals, back to when 'probably alive' turned into 'we're doing our best to find them'. He knew that it wouldn't be too long until that would turn into something worse. Every time he could get Pickles or Ofdensen to give him an update it was always the same. They had checked everywhere they could think of, they were running out of options, but they really were trying their best. They were keeping the hope that Toki was still alive, but they weren't swearing to it. Skwisgaar knew it was getting bad when he could see doubt in Ofdensen, he rarely saw the manager so stressed and so unsure about a situation. That was worrying. Everything was worrying.

Skwisgaar washed away his fears with whiskey, the alcohol chased down his fears and his worries. He didn't want to confront it, he didn't want to confront the idea that that was the very last time he would ever see him alive again. If by chance they found him and he wasn't alive did Skwisgaar even want to know? He wasn't sure he could handle yet another funeral, he couldn't handle that or knowing he could have done something about it. He could have done something or said something, any of them could have.

The more that he drank the more guilty he felt. He picked up his phone from beside him and scrolled through missed messages holding out hope.

'Dude come outta your fucking room, haven't seen you for like three days.'

Skwisgaar deleted the text from the drummer. He would come out of his room later, maybe when the sun was up and he felt like he could stand without falling on his face. If he didn't come out on his own he knew that Nathan would just drag him out.

The guitarist went through his contacts selecting Toki's number, he hit call. He waited as he listened to the ring, what did he expect? It never changed, every time that he called it was the same thing. It would ring seemingly for hours and then go straight to voice mail. He would hear his friend's rambling message, feel like he would cry all over again at hearing the sound of his long lost friend's voice. Then he would sit in silence for a second or two listening to nothing but dead air.

“Hey, I don't know why I keep calling. They're still looking for you....Gods I'm so sorry, I'm so fucking sorry this had to happen. I'm sorry that I treated you so badly and that I made you feel like shit. I didn't mean it, not really; I was just so fucking scared you'd leave.” 

Tears fell from his eyes, he coughed and sobbed. 

“I'm sorry, please don't be dead. Please, please don't be dead Toki. I miss you, I'll fucking do anything. I just want you to be okay and not be dead. I love you.”

He ended the call and dropped his phone down onto the bed.

He couldn't stop crying even if he wanted to. The pain in his head, neck, and chest only increased with each heavy sob. This wasn't a reality he wanted to live in, he didn't want to continue living like this and having to think about this. He didn't want to feel anything. He was in love with a dead man, how masochistic was that?

Skwisgaar fumbled around his dimly lit room until he found his pipe. He didn't have to be sober, he didn't have to be in his right mind. The filthy smoke filled his lungs, it gagged him, and made his mouth dry. Four minutes later he was kneeling before his toilet throwing his guts up, by the time he was done his body felt drained of all energy. His limbs shook and his vision was blurry; he pulled away and fell to the floor curling up on his side. He fell asleep on his bathroom floor, nothing he felt absolutely nothing.

 

Nathan passed the joint back to Pickles, he kept his eyes on the TV. He wasn't sure what they were watching other than the colors were bright and the volume went up each time it cut to a commercial break. The drummer coughed and passed the joint back to him, this time Nathan just kept it. 

“Come on dude give it back, it's my weed.” The older man complained grabbing for the joint.

Nathan held it out of the smaller man's reach, he smirked when Pickles leaned across him trying to grab for it.

“Dude chill, hold on.”

The black haired man took a hit holding the smoke in, he placed the joint down in the ashtray on his bed. He turned his attention to the shorter man placing a large hand on the back of his neck. Pickles eyed him curiously, Nathan leaned in placing his mouth over his; the red haired man opened his mouth in compliance taking in the smoke that his friend was currently pushing into his mouth. The older man curled his fingers in the front of his friend's shirt, he almost forgot about the smoke filling up his lungs until Nathan pulled away. 

“Fuck” he muttered after exhaling.

The younger man shrugged, he picked the joint up again offering it out to his friend.

“No I think I'm good, um...” Pickles pulled the younger man down pressing his lips against him kissing him hard.

Nathan tensed taken off guard, he kissed back when his brain caught up on what was currently taking place. He pulled the shorter man up onto his lap, hands tugging at his shirt. Pickles pulled away long enough to remove his shirt, he shoved the larger man back onto the bed straddling him as they kissed lazily. He kept his fingers tangled up in black hair, at the moment he was fascinated by it. Nathan was more so preoccupied with moving his hands from Pickles back down to his ass groping him as he ground up against him. He wasn't sure if he just wanted to make out or have a quick fuck. When the drummer's tongue worked its way inside of his mouth and he felt a metal ball run over his tongue he decided quickly. 

“When did you get your tongue pierced?” 

“Long time ago, why?”

“Uh I was thinking you could....” The younger man trailed off.

“I could blow you?”

“Yeah that would be, that would be awesome.”

Pickles smirked down at his friend.

Nathan propped himself up against the headboard, Pickles unfastened his jeans pulling his half hard cock from his jeans. He stroked him until he was fully hard;the red head ran his tongue over the tip of his cock. The metal ball in his tongue felt cool against his sensitive flesh making him groan. Pickles ran his tongue from the base to the head of Nathan's cock. The singer kept a hand on the back of his head, Pickles took the head of his dick into his mouth sucking lightly. He circled his tongue around then over the tip, Nathan bucked his hips. The red head took more of his length into his mouth, tongue piercing rolling along every inch of heated flesh on the way down.

“Fuck man, how many times have you done this?”

Pickles pulled off, he kept a firm grip on his cock giving slow teasing strokes.

“More times than you dudes would wanna know about.” He responded, smirked then took Nathan's cock back into his mouth.

Nathan leaned his head back closing his eyes. He probably shouldn't be good with the fact that he was getting a blow job from his best friend or the fact he had never had sex with a guy before. It felt great, really great. He moaned loudly when he felt the cool metal against the tip of his cock again. He opened his eyes looking down, the older man was back to stroking him while his tongue circled the head of his cock. 

“Fuck, dude you want me to warn you when I'm going to....I'm really fucking close.”

“Surprise me” The older man answered, he took the whole of his length into his mouth sucking hard.

Nathan kept a firm grip on the back of his head, he felt the muscles in his stomach and legs tense as his orgasm built up. He came hard inside of his friend's willing and waiting mouth, Pickles pulled up making it easier to swallow the younger man's cum. His tongue lapped at what remained on Nathan's cock until he was clean; he pulled away wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The black haired man pulled him in kissing him hard.

“Uh thanks” Nathan said awkwardly when they broke away.

“Anytime, you fucking owe me though.” He replied laughing at the worried look on the younger man's face.

“You don't gotta suck me off, just fuck my brains out. Been awhile for me.”

Nathan nodded dumbly, he couldn't get a grasp on words at the moment. He lay down with the smaller man against him, back pressed against his stomach. Nathan wrapped an arm loosely around his small frame keeping him close by, he wasn't going to admit how happy he was to not be sleeping alone tonight.


	6. Pretending to Forget

There weren't very many lulls allowing Skwisgaar to sober up and let the guilt sink in. They spent nearly an entire month going from state to state drinking and doing every drug they could get their hands on. Once they were through with the US they moved on to other countries, one month turned to two and two into three. Time blended together into a blur of hotel rooms they didn't get the time to remember, cities they didn't learn the names of, and drugs they took eagerly and without question. Skwisgaar kept women and men close by, he rarely spent a night alone no matter where they were; he couldn't be alone, because that was when he would think. Thinking was the last thing that he needed to do. 

One night as they sat in a pub somewhere in Helsinki, Skwisgaar kept to himself. He had his phone out, scrolling through old text messages from a long time ago. He would send new messages knowing he would never get a reply, but he liked to hold onto some delusional sense of hope.

'I miss you'

'You can have as many solos as you want, you can have anything you want. Just come back home. Please'

'I'm sorry that we aren't doing more, I don't know what to do.'

Somebody grabbed his phone out of his hands, Skwisgaar turned around in his seat ready to punch whoever had taken his phone. Pickles stood with the phone in hand, he scrolled through looking at the messages and calls that the guitarist had been apparently sending out for the past few months now. He looked back up into the younger man's blood shot eyes, he chewed at his bottom lip looking anxiously at the phone Pickles held in his hand.

“That's it dude, I'm keeping this. It isn't fucking good for you, bad enough I got Nathan looking at pictures of Abigail. God knows where the fuck he got those from.” He muttered knowing that she wouldn't have sent the singer pictures of herself in a million years.

“Come on give me my phone back Pickle”

“He's not gonna answer, you know that by now.”

Pickles turned the phone off and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans. Skwisgaar looked at him sad and lost, he wished he could do something to help him, but he didn't have much to offer. Technically they weren't supposed to be talking about this stuff amongst themselves, but especially out in public where anybody could hear. One look around the mostly empty pub he knew nobody cared, plus he was pretty sure Nathan was once again looking through pictures of Abigail on his phone. He sighed and sat down on the bar stool next to the Swedish musician.

“Look dude I know you fucking miss him, we all do....We just don't say it, you know how it is. You were all fucking aboard the not caring rule after Magnus bailed.”

He remembered how betrayed Skwisgaar had been after Magnus had stabbed Nathan. Even in the worst and most physically abusive of times the blond haired man had been loyally at Magnus' side ready to defend him. It was only stress, they were all stressed, and he would get past it and go back to normal. They had made up so many excuses for him and his actions until they realized the guy they had become close friends with was gone and replaced by something ugly. The morning after he had attacked Nathan Skwisgaar had announced things would be different, he was going to be different. That had lasted up until he picked up the homeless teenage guitarist from Norway.

“Do you think they'll find him?” Skwisgaar asked not wanting to think about the fact they were supposed to not care.

“I really don't know dude, try to not think about it so much.” 

“Why can you guys do that, it's so easy.....I can't just not think about him, I fucked up so badly. He's never going to know that I didn't mean it.” 

Skwisgaar raked his fingers back through his hair. Pickles pushed a shot glass full of amber liquid in front of him. The younger man downed it along with the second and the third that his friend pushed his way.

“It's alright man, we'll get through this.”

He wished he could believe that, but by the looks of things they were barely hanging on. Pickles went back to the table where Nathan sat, phone in hand and another picture of Abigail on the screen.

“C'mon dude don't make me confiscate your phone too.”

The black haired man looked up from the screen, he quickly closed out of the photo and put his phone back into his pocket.

“I was just thinking” He responded

“Yeah everybody is doing that lately, bad for your health.” 

Nathan looked towards the bar where Skwisgaar was talking to two dark skinned women in fishnets and mini skirts, he turned his attention back to Pickles.

“He okay?”

“Best he can be, you know he was in love with the little dildo.”

Pickles figured from the get go that Toki had had a crush on Skwisgaar, the moment he set those puppy dog eyes on the Swedish guitarist it was like he found Heaven. It only took one session for Skwisgaar to seem to feel the same about the younger musician. They always had a complicated relationship; when it had turned romantic or sexual, the drummer had no clue, but it had happened somewhere along the way. 

“Fucking gay”

“Europeans dude, speaking of gay though....Let's go back to the hotel, can help you take your mind off of things.” The red head suggested.

Nathan was grateful for the distraction; he felt guilty using his friend to forget about Abigail, but it felt like it went somewhere beyond that. He was too drunk too think about that now, by the time they were in their shared room he was too naked and aroused to give a fuck about anything.

 

Skwisgaar reached over to the night stand for his phone, he lifted his head from his spit stained pillow when he felt nothing. His head throbbed and the light from the over hanging lamp hurt his eyes. Right Pickles had taken his phone from him.

“Asshole” He whispered to himself.

An arm wrapped around his waist, he looked down at dark tattooed skin, purple painted fingernails gently dug into his lower stomach. He lifted the woman's hand to his mouth kissing it, he turned to face her seeing she was awake. She smiled lazily up at him, the women he took to bed always seemed so grateful to share a bed with the world's fastest guitarist. He kissed her working past the taste of cheap beer, her tongue invaded his mouth and her hand wrapped around his half hard cock stroking him. He found himself on top of her, hands cupping her breasts and fingers rubbing over her nipples. Guilt nagged at his mind, he broke away from the heated kiss and grabbed a bottle of bourbon from the night stand. He took a long drink from the bottle as the woman beneath him kissed and licked from his neck down to his chest her tongue flicking against his right nipple. The alcohol made him feel sicker, his head hurt like eighty types of Hell, but she was here and if he closed his eyes he could at least half ass pretend she was the person he wanted instead.


	7. Saving Grace

Toki lay curled up on the cold concrete floor, head resting on Abigail's lap. Her fingers combed methodically through his tangled and dirty brown hair as she attempted to soothe him to the best of her abilities. She wanted to keep him safe no matter how impossible that was, she tricked herself into believing that she was. He was still alive, he hadn't talked for a good while now, maybe months. He was still breathing, she knew something big was happening tonight. Something was different, nobody had come in to feed them, drag them apart, or to hurt either of them. She was smart enough to figure out that this meant it could most possibly be their last night here, their last night alive. She felt that Toki knew that too despite the fact he never talked. He took hold of her hand holding onto it, his grip was weak but he gave it all that he had. She gave up on telling him it would be okay a very long time ago, he might as well know the truth about their situation. It didn't take long in this place for her to realize the young guitarist was very familiar with the sensation of pain and being brought so close to death, in a terrifying way this was home for him. 

The large metal door slammed open; Magnus came into the room with the Assassin right behind him. They dragged the two of them apart, Toki struggled and whimpered reaching out for Abigail. Magnus punched him hard in the face knocking him out. Abigail wanted to spit in his face, even bite into his damned throat, but she was weak and she knew like before if she retaliated it would be taken out on Toki. Not like any of it mattered right now; tonight they were going to be murdered to fulfill some sick revenge plot come up by two people filled with misplaced rage and little to no moral ground.

“Going to have one Hell of a show tonight.” Magnus commented to her.

She kept her eyes ahead not looking at the cannibalistic lunatics who watched them with hungry eyes. She hated them, she tried not to think about the Revengencers too much. She thought back to the first time that Magnus had decided to 'feed' them; the dog bowls with shredded hardly cooked meat, the obviously human eye ball at the bottom of it....

They were taken into a room away from the hungry glowing eyes of the insane; two large crosses sat on the ground. She was as compliant as one could be in such a weak and exhausted state. She ran out of fight a long time ago, if she was going to die she would do it with some dignity. She knew kicking, screaming, and flailing like a frightened small animal would not do her any good in this situation. She looked over at Toki, he was just barely waking up; screaming and fighting wouldn't do either of them any good. She didn't think about how they would die, if it would be slow or if it would be quick. When they were hung upside down, tied to the crucifixes the blood rushed to her head making thinking and processing their situation harder. 

 

 

When they barged into the room where Magnus kept Toki and Abigail, Skwisgaar was shocked to see the band's ex lead guitarist impaled on a sword, hands grabbing at the blade protruding from the front of his body. He couldn't take his eyes off of the middle aged man's struggling form until he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and heard Pickles tell Nathan to hurry up. He looked over to the two large inverted crosses in the room, their friends chained to them. Nathan and Pickles worked to take Toki and Abigail down from them; they dragged their friends over towards Skwisgaar and Murderface. Skwisgaar took Abigail from Pickles doing his best to support her, he was surprised that she mostly seemed able to stand on her own two feet. She looked at him surprised, but a loud booming voice caught all of their attention. They looked towards the Assassin who stood before them ready to murder them in the name of his fallen brother. Skwisgaar could feel his heart pounding in his chest, Abigail moved away from him whispering she was okay on her own. Skwisgaar looked to Toki who had one limp arm around Nathan's broad shoulders, his light colored eyes locked on the blond haired man. Skwisgaar found himself drawn closer to him taking him from the singer and holding him up himself, Toki gratefully leaned against his body seeking comfort and trying to assess for himself if this was real. Skwisgaar held him closely, protectively; he turned his focus on the Assassin. It was like looking up at some monster that supposedly lived under your bed when you were a child, something unknown and barely human that could kill you with ease. He glared up at the masked white haired man; if this was the end then he would fight to the death if it meant protecting Toki.

“You took my brother from me”

“We rather burn in Hell than let you take ours” Nathan growled back, Skwisgaar remembered thinking it was kind of funny how somebody else managed to have a deeper growl to their voice than Nathan.

He didn't remember much after that, it just all sort of blacked out and this intense burning sensation filled him until it felt like flames were pouring out of every pore. When he came to they were all standing in the middle of the large room, the building was falling to pieces around them; the Assassin was dead, his body shredded and spread around the room. The others turned and left going as quickly as they could, Skwisgaar turned and started to run after them until he noticed Toki still standing there.

The younger man stood looking up towards the ceiling that was on the verge of collapsing, some look of acceptance and finality was in his glassy eyes. There was something so haunting about the way he looked standing amongst the rubble, bare footed, torn clothes, and tangled hair falling over his shoulders. He looked so frail, younger than usual, and like he had nothing left. Skwisgaar ran towards him, he grabbed him by the hand, the contact jolted him out of his hypnotized state. He turned his head looking at Skwisgaar, eyes filling with recognition.

“Let's get out of here.” Skwisgaar said to him

He ran out of the building with Toki close by, when they got outside the younger musician's legs began to give out. Skwisgaar paused long enough to pick him up off of the ground and carry him the rest of the way to join their friends at the very end of the street outside of a closed up pawn shop. He cradled the younger man in his arms, his urge to protect him still strong. He had so much to make up for. Toki wasn't dead, he looked like he was in terrifyingly bad shape, but he was still breathing. It would be a long time until he would be okay again, he would be so angry when he finds out why it took so long. Skwisgaar thought about how they thought they were dead, how he had prepared himself to walk in and find his closest friend, the man he was in love with dead. Trembling fingers brushed against his cheek, he looked down at Toki. The rhythm guitarist watched him curiously, he brushed the tears from the blond haired man's cheek while he tried to figure out why somebody so beautiful was crying. 

“I'm sorry baby, I won't let anything ever happen to you again. I swear, I'm going to protect you from now on like I always should have.” He whispered so only the two of them could hear.

He felt his heart ache more and more with each detail he took in. How frail his body was, how matted his hair was, the bruises on his face, the blood pooling in his left eye, and the infected wounds he could feel beneath his fingers. Skwisgaar kissed his forehead, “I love you, you're the world to me” 

Toki curled his fingers in Skwisgaar's shirt, he buried his face against his chest making a content sort of sound as he inhaled a scent he never thought he would smell again.

When the helicopter Pickles called for showed up the paramedics took Abigail and Toki first. The others trailed closely behind; the paramedics refused to let them back in the make shift hospital ward. Skwisgaar wasn't really happy with having to leave the younger man's side. He sat down on one of the chairs rubbing his hands down over his face, groaning. Pickles took a seat next to him, he placed a hand on his friend's shoulder.

“He'll be fine, don't worry.” He reassured though he couldn't swear to that.

“We fucking forgot about him, did you see him?”

“We fucked up, I'll admit that, I'll tell you now he is gonna be pissed. You know how he is when he's pissed, just prepare for that.”

Pickles mentally raced through every time their youngest band mate had been pissed off; he could either go from a sociopathic state of wanting to ruin you emotionally or he would go into an immediate psychotic rage like some sort of savage animal asserting its dominance. There was never a good side to his anger, after the Hell he had just gone through for the past eight months Pickles knew whatever happened would not be pretty, but God they deserved whatever he threw at them. They had been assholes and cowards, he was ready to admit that. 

“I just got him back, I don't want to fucking lose him again.”

“Just don't think about that right now. Focus on him getting better then we'll worry about what comes after, right now he needs you.”

Skwisgaar looked at him hopefully, Pickles felt bad for the guitarist. He could be so emotional for a guy who didn't talk often and acted arrogant to the point most people couldn't tolerate his presence. When it came to the rhythm guitarist that changed; he could expose every emotional range a person was capable of in any span of time. Pickles had been intrigued and grateful when he noticed the way the new guitarist changed the Swede. 

“Thanks Pickle”

“Anytime, I gotta go check on Nathan now.”

Pickles found the front man further towards the back sitting with Murderface. The bassist was stabbing at the seat next to him and Nathan had his eyes locked on the knife.

“You okay?”

“Yeah I think, I kind of don't remember a lot of what just happened.” He admitted.

“Yeah me either, fucking weird....We all got out okay though.”

The period of blacking out had been odd, worrying possibly, but the six of them had made it out of the building alive. Too bad the priest had to die. Pickles wanted to ask Nathan how he was feeling about that, but he knew it would be pushing his luck to get the front man to express his feelings about losing somebody who actually seemed to understand him in ways the others couldn't have. It had sort of bothered the drummer that Nathan never told him about the dreams he'd been having for years now. He wouldn't have called him crazy, he might have made a bad joke or two, but that was just what Pickles did. Maybe there would come a time where Nathan would feel more like sharing what he knew with the rest of the band or just with the drummer.

The ride back home was quiet, nobody had anything to say or to reflect on out loud. They all had their own things to think about, to worry about; so many things, probably too many things. When they arrived back at Mordhaus the paramedics took Toki and Abigail to the medical ward. This time they did tell Skwisgaar he could go with them if he really wanted to. Pickles felt a pang of jealousy when he saw Nathan follow after the lead guitarist saying that he wanted to go check in on Abigail. The drummer headed off to his own room where he proceeded to drink until he passed out. Skwisgaar settled down on a black plastic chair next to Toki's hospital bed, he held onto the other man's hand his thumb brushing over his bruised up knuckles. He fell asleep with his head on the bed and Toki's fingers combing through his hair. In the other room Nathan sat with Abigail not sure what he should do or say, he could hardly get himself to meet her eyes. 

“I'm sorry. Ofdensen was looking for you guys, we thought he would find you. We didn't know and when he couldn't we just figured you were....I freaked out, I didn't handle it well. I'm really sorry.” 

Abigail placed a hand on his arm, he took hold of her hand holding it. He looked up at her hopefully, she smiled sadly looking into his guilt filled green eyes. He was a pretty man despite the rough look to his face; the way he looked at her was charming and the way he treated her like she was something magical to him made her feel special. She was hurt and angry that they had left the two of them like that, but she understood. She had learned quickly on her own and through Charles that none of them handled things well, they got scared and confused. She wasn't sure what she would have done in their situation, but she had been on the other end of the situation. She had been scared and hurt, she was hurt and tired now; she didn't think she had anymore anger to throw out. She was pretty sure Nathan would have a complete break down if she began yelling at him and telling him how selfish the four of them had been.

“We can discuss it later, okay? You should get some rest right now.” She said voice gentle

“Are you okay?”

“I will be” 

Nathan nodded. He got up from the chair he had been sitting on, he looked at her like he wanted to kiss her, but decided against it. He didn't feel like he was worthy of it, he never should have kissed her to start with. He wasn't good enough for somebody like her, especially after the way he had just left her like that, but he hadn't known. He'd assumed she had died, he assumed her and the twenty something year old he treated like a little brother had both been dead. The five of them were cursed by death, it wouldn't have been surprising. He tried to block the thoughts out of his head as he made his way to his bedroom; he paused momentarily outside of Pickles room but decided better than that. He didn't feel worthy of facing the drummer either, not right now.


	8. Nighmares and Solace

Skwisgaar woke to the sound of crying and the occasional yell of pain. Toki was thrashing on the bed, eyes shut tightly and teeth gritting together like he was struggling against some invisible attacker. The blond haired man got up from the chair he'd spent the majority of the night curled up on, he placed a hand on the struggling man's shoulder shaking him gently. 

“Toki wake up, it's alright; it's just a nightmare.”

The younger man grabbed at his arm, fingers digging into his skin as he tried to push him away.

“Toki knock it off, wake up.”

Skwisgaar caressed his bruised cheek, ran his fingers back through his hair. He didn't know exactly what to do, it had been way too long since he had to deal with his friend's violent nightmares. He was grateful when he stopped thrashing, his arms and legs growing tired from the movement he was far from having the strength and energy to exert. He settled on crying and whimpering. Skwisgaar sat on the side of the bed, he pressed his lips against his forehead.

“Shh it's okay, just a nightmare....You're okay, I got you” He whispered, fingers combing through his hair.

Toki opened his eyes looking up at him, Skwisgaar smiled down at him.

“Everything's fine, min kjærlighet. Just a bad dream.”

The younger man placed his hand on Skwisgaar's upper arm, he realized how just the other day he was thinking how he would probably never feel his touch again or be this close to him. The overwhelming urge to kiss him came over the blond haired guitarist, he fought back the urge and moved off of the bed and back onto the plastic chair. He did hold onto the rhythm guitarist's hand until he fell back into sleep this time without the fretful nightmares waking him up. He wondered how long it would be until he'd be okay again. The doctors said his left eye was devoid of sight due to small pieces of rock and glass digging into it over the past months, two bruised ribs, and shallow scars marring his skin. His fingers were littered in short shallow cuts, Skwisgaar didn't exactly want to find out what the cause of them or the circular scars around his neck were from. He was still having problems not thinking about what they had seen in that place in the short amount of time that they had been there. It had been a pure and torturous Hell that they had practically willingly left their friends in. Skwisgaar wanted to make excuses for himself, he could come up with millions, but he knew they wouldn't mean a fucking thing the second that Toki found out about what had been going on. He knew what Pickles had told him had been right; he was going to be pissed, it was going to be pure hell. Skwisgaar wasn't sure if he was ready to lose him again, three times now?

God what if he left the band over this....

Skwisgaar couldn't blame him if he did something like that, if he hated them it would be understandable. They should have done a lot more, but they had been scared. Skwisgaar didn't handle being scared well, he didn't handle dealing with terrible things that happened in his life well. He had time before Toki would find out, before he would be well enough to find out the truth. Skwisgaar swore to himself that he would take care of him and protect him until then. 

Skwisgaar leaned on the bed resting his head against the younger man's leg, Toki opened his eyes glancing down at him, his fingers found their way into golden locks of hair. He had problems realizing this was real and that he was back in Mordhaus and that Skwisgaar was right there with him. His mind was still back in that awful place trying to figure out what he'd done so wrong to be put there, he could feel the ghost of the metal collar around his neck. There was a dull throbbing pain in his body that drugs were making tolerable. He wanted to speak, to say something, or ask a question, but he couldn't find it in himself to speak. There was some fear inside of his mind that if he spoke then the image would waver and break and he would be back in that dungeon, he wouldn't be here anymore. He feared he might be losing his mind more than he already had been, his friends were right when they said he was crazy. He had to be crazy, he couldn't be a good person, or pretend that he was normal or alright. He was literally everything but those things.

He needed to stop thinking, over thinking, but it was better than not thinking at all. Though the times where he slipped into not thinking, not over thinking everything seemed simpler. He had to deal with less, be confronted with less terrible things, but that was a long time ago. Besides he feared if he did that then he would lose this and be alone all over again. He hated the hospital bed, he hated not being able to have Skwisgaar properly laying by his side, but he would settle for this. For right now, God he had missed him so much. He wanted to tell him, but words failed him completely; they weren't something he was capable of when he wasn't even sure what was real and what wasn't. He forced himself to go to sleep again when he realized that it wasn't good to think so much. Besides as long as Skwisgaar kept holding onto his hand he knew he had to be some semblance of okay.


	9. Telling the Truth Isn't Exactly Easy

Skwisgaar sat on the side of the bed, guitar on his lap; he hadn't practiced for months now. He hadn't even touched his guitar, he hadn't found a single reason in the world to play it anymore back when they were nearly positive their rhythm guitarist was gone for good. Holding the instrument again was weird, he felt guilty for not playing in so long. If it weren't for the request of the healing younger guitarist he wouldn't have considered touching his guitar anytime soon. He noticed how his fingers didn't move with the grace he had trained himself to move with for years now, but Toki sat watching him attentively. He didn't notice the minute mistakes, he just focused on the blond haired man's long skilled fingers and thought about the hundreds of times they had sat on beds like this before. Skwisgaar made himself forget that they were in a hospital room, he closed his eyes taking his mind off of the state of things, and the situation that they were in. He pretended these were different times before things headed straight for Hell.

“I missed hearing you play.” Toki remarked, his voice was quiet.

It had taken nearly a week for him to begin speaking again, the first time he had spoken had been right after he woke from one of his nightmares. He had wrapped his arms around Skwisgaar's waist, buried his face against his chest and sobbed his name over and over again.

Skwisgaar looked over at the younger man, he pushed his blond hair back behind his ear and smiled shyly at him.

“I uh....I missed you watching me play.”

The lead guitarist inwardly cringed at his lamely made comment, he put all his focus back on his playing. It lasted until he felt a hand on his side and gentle warm breath against the side of his neck, he instinctively tilted his head to the side exposing more of his neck to his partner. Soft lips pressed against his skin, hesitant and loving. Skwisgaar's eyes fell shut, his playing went from fast to slow.

“Tokis....”

The younger man hummed in reply, lips still on his neck and fingers caressing his skin.

Skwisgaar couldn't help the soft moan that escaped him, his playing slowed to a stop. He sat the guitar down on the bed; Toki's hand moved from his side to his lower stomach. God how much he had missed this, he wanted to hold him in his arms, to kiss him, and love him. He wanted to give him everything he should have given him for years now. Forget their tragic background, start from the beginning soon after the first kiss they ever shared; things had been so much easier then. When calloused fingers roamed up under his shirt he crashed back into reality; months wasted getting high and wasting time. So much time wasted, so much they could have done, but instead they willingly turned their backs on their friend. He couldn't do this.

“Toki I can't.”

Toki sat back, he placed a hand on the older man's cheek, Skwisgaar turned his head to face him. Mismatched eyes stared up at him confused, seeing his dully colored left eye pained him; it wouldn't look that way if they had just gone and saved him sooner. His fingers wouldn't be cut up, he wouldn't have so many scars, and he wouldn't thrash so violently in his sleep. It was their fault, his fault; he did this to him and the thought made it hard to breathe.

“I can't do this” He repeated louder this time, eh got up from the bed. He didn't feel worthy of being so close to him, he didn't want Toki touching him.

“What is it?”

The blond haired man nervously chewed on his bottom lip; he didn't know how to admit this. Confessions had never been his strong point in life, the worry in his partner's eyes made it all that much harder. He knew he could change his mind, could say 'never mind' and let Toki believe they had spent those months actively searching for him. He was so sick of lying, he was sick of so many things.

“I need to tell you something....It's, it's about when you and Abigail were missing. We, we could have found you sooner, but we weren't looking. Ofdensen was, there were hundreds of people looking for you guys, just-”

“Wait you guys weren't looking?” Toki asked confused.

“No...”

“Why not?” He demanded

“Charles told us he would find you guys, we just assumed he would.”

There had always been a chance that Toki and Abigail had died shortly after the funeral, the chances grew the longer it took Charles to find some clue. It had never been a sure thing, but the chance scared them away from looking. It scared them to think about, to realize people they let themselves care for could be dead. They didn't want to think about it so they didn't; they never realized there was a possibility worse than death.

“So what, what happened when he didn't find me?”

“We didn't know what to do, okay?”

“You could have fucking done something, you could have gotten off of your asses and looked.” The younger man yelled.

Skwisgaar couldn't argue with him, he couldn't tell him that he was wrong about that.

“I'm sorry” 

That was it, that was literally the only thing he had to say; he couldn't even look him in the eye anymore. He kept his head lowered and eyes on the ground, if he looked at him then he would see how very pissed off he was and it would break him completely to see that.

“Sorry, you're sorry? If it had been any of you I would have gone looking for you! I would have spent all my time out looking for you. I never would have stopped, what did you even do, did you even fucking care?”

Skwisgaar closed his eyes, he took a deep breath letting it out slowly. 

“Tell me, fucking tell me if you even care about me. You keep telling me you love me, that I mean everything to you and it took you six fucking months to even bother to look for me.”

His voice held so much pain and accusation; Skwisgaar couldn't remember the last time Toki had been this angry, this hurt by them and their selfish actions.

“I meant what I said, I do care about you and love you. We came for you when we knew for sure you were still alive.”

If it hadn't been for that clue then they never would have looked, it hurt him to admit that.

“If you loved me you would have come looking for me instead of assuming I was fucking dead. What if you hadn't found out for sure, would you have just replaced me with somebody better? Would I still fucking be there right now?” Toki yelled, voice echoing off of the walls of the small room.

Skwisgaar winced, he could feel tears burning in his eyes blurring his vision. God he was sorry, he was so fucking sorry. 

“I'm sorry, we fucked up. You don't understand what it was like after what happened, we....”

He stopped himself; he had no excuses, he knew soon enough Toki would see the news stories and the pictures of what they had been up to while he had been left to rot. 

When he didn't get an automatic response from the brown haired man he chanced looking up at him. Toki sat on the bed, arms folded over his chest. Tears rolled down his cheeks, there was so much hate and so much pain; he looked so frail and weak. He would have died if he had been left there for one more day; one day late and he would have died. Skwisgaar could barely keep himself from breaking down, it wouldn't do him any good.

“I'm sorry” He whispered, it was all that he had to offer.

“I don't forgive you, you don't deserve it.”

“I know” He agreed

There was a heavy painful silence in between them, nothing in the world could break through the pain they were causing themselves and one another.

“Get out of here, get out of my sight.” Toki said dismissing him; his voice trembled.

Skwisgaar nodded his agreement, he hung his head and left the room. It wasn't until he was halfway down the hallway did he stop and lean back against the wall. His breathing was shaky and his chest hurt, he knew this wasn't even the beginning of how bad it was going to get. It wouldn't be long until Toki would see the stories on the TV and the pictures on the internet, the videos, and interviews from when they had been out getting wasted while he had been in a dungeon being tortured. Skwisgaar slid down to the floor, he pulled his legs up against himself and buried his face in his hands. He broke down crying, sobs wracking his body. He could have taken a more selfish route and just kept it quiet, let Toki think they had been out looking for him for all of that time. He could have given himself happiness he sure as hell didn't deserve, but he had missed it. He had missed having Toki by his side, having him with him. Now they were back to step one, back to a place Skwisgaar never wanted to return to in a thousand years.

 

Pickles found Skwisgaar sitting on the floor, the guitarist's face was hidden from view, but by the look of his trembling form and the sound of whimpering he could guess what was going on. He stopped in front of the younger man, he looked further down the hall towards the door leading into their other guitarist's hospital room then back towards Skwisgaar.

“How did he find out?” The drummer finally asked drawing his friend's attention.

Skwisgaar lifted his head looking up at him; his eyes were puffy and red, tears rolling down flushed cheeks. He hadn't looked this bad for days, if anything he'd spent the past week seeming rather content. They all knew that could only last so long.

“I told him” 

“Seriously?” He asked surprised.

The blond haired man nodded, he rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand.

“I had to, I couldn't just let him keep thinking we did something. We were selfish pricks, he should know that.”

“How angry did he get?”

“Not enough to kill me, but he'll probably be there once he gets online....I think we really fucked up, like really fucked up.”

“Yeah we did...Come on, let's go get a drink or something; not doing you any good sitting out here.”

The guitarist climbed to his feet and followed behind the older man, he periodically rubbed at his eyes trying to cease in his crying. By the time that they reached the kitchen he had managed to stop, but he still looked like he had spent the better part of an hour crying. The two musicians sat down at the kitchen table passing a bottle of vodka back and forth, Pickles didn't complain when Skwisgaar would keep it for longer than one swig.

“So you gonna talk to him again, work things out or whatever?” Pickles asked after taking a long drink from the bottle.

The blond shook his head, “I don't think so, just make things worse.”

Skwisgaar didn't have a great way with words, it was a miracle he had even managed to make his confession. The red head had to give him credit for that much at least, but he couldn't picture the Swedish guitarist coming up with the right words to say to make the situation with their rhythm guitarist less tense.

“Give it awhile”

The blond took a long drink from the bottle, sat it down then took another drink. Pickles grabbed the bottle from him shooting him a look, Skwisgaar shrugged apologetically.

“How long of awhile?”

“I don't know, Toki is good at being pissed.”

Very, very good at being pissed off; in the five years he had been in their band Pickles had mostly managed to avoid having the youngest member of their group get pissed off at him. The others on the other hand seemed to have a tendency for accidentally or on purpose getting into fights with the easily angered Norwegian. 

“Gods we fucked up, we seriously fucked up; I could have done something. I could have looked on my own.”

“Where, we didn't even have a fucking clue until Magnus stuffed one inside of that guy.”

“I don't know, I could have figured it out.” Skwisgaar snapped, irritated more so at himself than his friend.

Pickles passed the bottle back to him this time with no plans of asking for it back. 

“Charles did his best, Magnus didn't want us to find them until it was the right time. You know all of this shit.”

He knew, they all knew, but in a way it just felt like another excuse to throw on top of the pile. He knew excuses weren't working any longer and they never should have used them in the first place. Skwisgaar was sick of making up excuses for himself, for getting Toki to forgive him through half ass explanations. It wasn't going to work that way this time and honestly he didn't want for it to. 

“You should probably tell Nathan and Murderface that Toki knows.”

“Yeah I'll do that”

Pickles wasn't sure if he wanted to go talk to Nathan. Ever since Abigail had gotten out of the hospital wing the singer had been by her side paying as much attention to her as he could. The drummer was happy that Nathan seemed happy, guilty but happy. He just couldn't help the jealousy that he felt when he looked at the two of them, not when he realized it was her he was jealous of.


	10. Hurt

It hurt, it hurt like eighty types of Hell to be forgotten and not loved. Nobody knew that better than Toki, he knew it far too well. He had spent so much of his childhood wondering what he had done wrong to make his mother and father hate him, to make them beat him and cut into his flesh. It wasn't until he ran away from home at thirteen and went to live in town did he realize that he had never done anything wrong, but the guilt still lingered. The sensation that he should apologize for being born, apologize to them for being brought into the world. It was idiotic to want to do such a thing, they never should have had a child. His guilt never left, the feeling that bad things happened because he rightfully deserved them stayed in the back of his mind always waiting. When he left Norway and ended up living in the alleyways in Florida for a little over a year he figured it was God cursing him for leaving home, for betraying his family; the family that had literally spent thirteen years trying to murder him. When Magnus had turned on him he'd blamed himself. He deserved it; he deserved it for trusting some complete stranger, for getting angry at his friends for telling him to avoid the elder guitarist. They told him time and time again, they tried to protect him; he had screamed at Skwisgaar, had lost his best friend over this. It was his fault Magnus had stabbed him and had tortured him. He deserved it, he was being punished for literally every crime and sin he had committed in his lifetime. When nobody had come for him he figured that was also the work of God, a terrible God he'd been raised to fear. He never knew if he had feared an actual entity or the crack of the whip in his father's hand....

Now curled up on his hospital bed he could only think about what Skwisgaar had confessed. How the hell did they care about him if they hadn't looked for him until the very last minute? He couldn't process it; he could understand it if they had just left him there, because they didn't want to bother with him any longer. He could understand that even if it hurt and maybe that was the truth. He wasn't sure anymore; he wasn't sure how much he even cared anymore. The drugs in his system meant to dull the pain in his body made it hard to think. The throbbing in his left eye from all of his crying made him wish he could stop, but he couldn't. Crying made him feel weak, it never did any good, but he was doing it. He didn't cry when he was a child, he just took the pain and made himself numb to it. That was how he survived, that and by some miracle. He never was sure if he was the antichrist or a Reaper; his father often switched between the two titles so often that the child was confused.

If he thought too much about his childhood he could feel faded scars start to itch or were those the new ones?

He ran trembling fingers over the finally properly stitched up cut where Magnus had stabbed him back at the funeral. He could spend hours touching every scar on his body, every scar put there by people he had trusted to care for him. As a child it had made sense; as a child you needed to be taken care of and loved, he had needed his parents. As an adult he didn't need people to take care after him, he should do it for himself and he knew he was capable of it. He just couldn't get it to work that way, not all of the time. He just liked the possibility that for once in his life somebody could take care of him, he'd spent so many years of his life just fending for himself and taking care of himself, raising himself.

No wonder his friends had left him to rot. He was a burden to them. It made him hate himself more, hate them, or did he hate them? They were literally the only family he knew and it wasn't like he had a brilliant track record with the people he allowed into his life. He had the most repulsive tastes; junkies, murderers, lunatics, and shallow bastards...It was a toxic and repetitive line up, he was too dumb and scared of being alone to actually realize how bad these people were for him.

It sickened him that even right now he missed Skwisgaar being in the room with him. He didn't like being in this darkened room alone, alone with his thoughts. So many months all he could do to keep himself from complete and utter insanity was to think about the blond haired man. In that time he remembered the things that had made him fall in love with him despite how much he would come to hate himself for that feeling, for that personal admission. How the Hell did things always change so quickly?

He thought back to long ago, back to when he had been seventeen and they were a week away from moving from old Mordhaus into current Mordhaus.

 

_The two guitarists sat together on the worn down couch, while their band mates had decided to go out and binge drink in celebration of their high record sales the two Scandinavians had chosen to stay behind. Skwisgaar wanted to practice for their upcoming shows and of course Toki wanted to practice with him, well mostly he just wanted to watch the older man play. It wasn't that he didn't like practicing, it was just that he didn't feel he was anywhere near as talented as Skwisgaar was. The older man persisted that he practice as well, so he did. They spent an hour going over the songs, going over what they might change when they were touring and what Skwisgaar hated, but Nathan had said they were keeping._

_Toki hit the wrong cord for the fifth time in a row, he glared down at his calloused fingers._

_“I fucking hate my hands.” He muttered mostly to himself._

_Skwisgaar took hold of his hands holding them in his own._

_“Don't say that, I like them.”_

_The blond haired man traced his fingers over the palms of Toki's hands, he kept his eyes focused on the younger musician's hands._

_“My fingers are short and stubby, it sucks; I can't play as fast as you do” He complained._

_“So? You keep up pretty fucking well, don't be so hard on yourself. You don't have to be me....Your fingers aren't short and stubby either. You have really pretty hands, I mean nice; you have very nice skinny hands...”_

_He noticed the look of frustration and embarrassment on the older man's face, he couldn't help but smile. Skwisgaar looked him in the eye when the younger man laughed at him and his awkward line of compliments. He narrowed his eyes and Toki stopped laughing, he gave him an apologetic look._

_“That sounded really dumb, didn't it?” Skwisgaar admitted, he smiled at the brunette._

_Toki nodded in agreement._

_They sat staring at one another, Skwisgaar was still holding onto his hands, and at this point neither of them exactly knew where to really go from here. Toki had the feeling he should pull his hands away, they should start practicing again, but there was something electric in having Skwisgaar touching him. He wondered how electric it would be if they kissed?_

_His question was answered when full lips pressed against his kissing him gently, he could feel the current between them and he wanted more of it. He didn't want for it to end, he was lost in a moment just for the two of them. It was such a shame when it finally ended._

 

It was even more of a shame that was the last time they shared a moment like that, for some time. He remembered it took barely a year after moving into new Mordhaus for Skwisgaar as well as his other friends to find they had an obsession with the worship like attention of strange women, Skwisgaar was the worst out of their group. It had hurt to be pushed to the side like that, when the fame really set in Skwisgaar had turned into somebody else. He wanted everything to be perfect and he no longer saw that in the rhythm guitarist that he placed in their band, compliments quickly turned to insults, and tension built quickly. Toki hated him or at least that was what he told himself, what he told Skwisgaar every chance that he got. What he hated the most was how the older man never said it back, no matter what Toki did or said the older musician never hated him.

When the Assassin had nearly taken their lives that first time something had changed. He wasn't sure what, he liked to believe initially that it was all due to adrenaline. Adrenaline was what made him want to kick himself for his potential last words being that he hated Skwisgaar. Adrenaline was the reason why the second they got back to Mordhaus that he found himself in the older man's room. Adrenaline was the reason that he made it his duty to make Skwisgaar moan his name in ecstasy. The brush with death could only be held responsible for so long though, after months of casual hook ups he wasn't sure what to blame it on.

Between them it was years of pulling and pushing; Skwisgaar feared loneliness just as much as Toki did, maybe even more. It was one of the millions of things that kept the two of them together, some deep seeded need for one another. Possibly why right now hurt so damn much. He didn't want to be alone now, not now; not after spending so many months locked up like an animal and beaten for things he wasn't guilty of. If he had his phone on him he would consider calling or messaging Skwisgaar, not to forgive him; God that was the last thing he wanted to do. He just needed to hear his voice, like back before the funeral when he had called him after their fight. Now all that he had was darkness, loneliness, and conflicting emotions roaring inside of him. He lay on the bed curled up on his side, he pulled the blanket up over his head hiding himself from the overwhelming nothingness. He hated this so much, he hated himself for being in love with somebody he should be spending his time hating.

Two hours later he woke up confused and with a headache, his left eye itched horribly and he knew by now better than to rub at it. He assessed the dimly lit hospital room, went through everything in his mind and told himself for the hundredth time that Magnus was not on the other side of that door. It was easier when he'd had Skwisgaar by his side. He looked over at the empty chair that was still beside his bed, a pathetic part of him had hoped he would sneak back in while he'd been sleeping. He couldn't say for sure if he would have tossed him out or just let him stay, at least stay long enough to give himself comfort. His foot hit against something on the end of the bed, he looked to see Skwisgaar's guitar where he had left it before their fight. He picked the instrument up and held it, it had been a really long time since he'd held a guitar. He felt slightly guilty he only played guitar onstage and sometimes while they were in the studio, no wonder they had just left him in that place. A guilty part of him wondered if that had anything to do with it, his lack of actually working and contributing. He never did anything productive, he just relied on Skwisgaar for everything.

This was the first time he'd actually held one of Skwisgaar's guitars, the older man was protective over his guitars just like he used to be protective over Toki. The guitars always held up their place of importance in his life though while the brunette got pushed to the wayside. Change was part of life, he could possibly be better off if he just accepted that; it didn't make this all hurt any less though. He slowly carefully began playing the instrument. It felt as familiar as it felt unfamiliar, he hadn't made music for such a long time. His fingers didn't move with the quick paced ease that Skwisgaar's did. His fingers trembled and they hurt, each movement seemed to make one of the cuts on his fingers burn or made the healing skin break back open, blood finding its way onto the guitar he held. He continued playing though, he was tired of sleeping and if he cried anymore he would end up with a migraine. Bad enough his eye still itched, he wondered what his eye looked like. He thought back to when Magnus had had him face down on the floor, boot clad foot on the back of his head smashing his face against a rubble covered floor. Small jagged rocks and shards of glass had cut into his cheek and his forehead, small rock fragments had found their way into his eye, but what had really done it had been the medium sized piece of glass that cut its way into his eye. Toki had screamed, Magnus had laughed; the dirt, his diabetes, and the crazed man's lack of care made him lose sight completely in his injured eye. Magnus had told him it was a strike of luck that it had been his left eye, he had seemed rather proud of himself.

Toki hung his head allowing his hair to fall over his face until it completely covered his left eye from view. He would have to look into a mirror sometime, he wasn't looking forward to it. His fingers worked at a faster pace, they didn't shake like they had been before. He was beginning to realize why Skwisgaar relied on guitar playing to calm his anxieties so often. Toki hoped Skwisgaar would forget he left his guitar here and just let him keep it for the next four to six days he was stuck here, but he also hoped the lead guitarist would come to get it. He wasn't sure what he would say to Skwisgaar next time that he saw him, wasn't sure he wanted to look at him or any of his band mates for that matter. They had left him, they had just presumed he was dead because Charles couldn't find him quick enough. People who cared would have searched themselves, not just thrown the responsibility on a single person and they sure as hell wouldn't have given up so quickly, so easily. Tears stung at his eyes again, he fought to keep them at bay; he was in too much pain to be crying over his friends.


	11. Definitely Not Metal

Since Abigail had been released from the hospital, Nathan from what Pickles could tell was loyally by her side. Not that there was anything wrong with that and from what he could tell she didn't mind the attention the singer was giving her. He was happy for them, happy; okay he wasn't. He wasn't angry like he had been back when he over heard Nathan going down on her, nothing like that. He just felt irritated and seeing them together made him feel odd, jealous. He was jealous, again; not as badly as the last time. There was way too much going on for him to be back on that;he still needed to tell the other two members of their band that Toki was pissed off at them. He knew he should stop drinking, leave the living room and go find Nathan to tell him. He just wondered if he would be with Abigail, he really didn't want to see them together anymore.

“Hey can we talk?”

Pickles looked up, Nathan stood there awkwardly beside the couch.

“Sure”

It never seemed like much good came from it when somebody said they needed to talk to you, last time he checked he was up to date on all of the bad news.

“Abigail broke up with me.” 

Pickles raised an eyebrow at hearing the statement, now he was less nervous and more interested. 

“Really, why?”

“She said it just wasn't something that could work out and it wouldn't be professional.”

“Aw dude I'm sorry to hear that”

Okay that was a bit of a lie, he didn't like the sad look on the larger man's face, but something in him felt good about hearing they were no longer together. He wasn't sure if that made him a shit friend or not.

“So I guess you can go ahead and date her if you still want to.” Nathan said, he sighed heavily.

“Uh dude why would I date her?” Pickles asked confused.

The black haired man stared at him like that question was dumb and the answer should be obvious.

“Because we got into a huge fight over this, because you wanted to date her.”

Pickles took a long drink from the bottle of beer he was holding finishing it off, he sat it down on the floor with the rest of the empties.

“Alright dude for the like millionth fucking time; I did not, do not want to date Abigail. I just wanted to have sex with her, that's it.”

Nathan continued to stare at him attempting to process what his friend had just told him, again.

Initially the red head had assumed that's what both of them had wanted out of the situation. They had both been sexually frustrated and there was already tension because of the destroyed record and the economy collapsing all because of it. It wasn't until Nathan started telling everybody he saw that Abigail was his girlfriend when she obviously didn't agree to the status that Pickles realized he'd been right and his friend didn't just want to have sex with her.

“Wait....So you don't want to date her?”

“No, I fucking told you that. Like I don't know how many times I have told you this, I just wanted to fuck her. That's seriously it. Nothing else.”

He saw the realization light up in his deep green eyes.

“Oh....So wow I really was being an asshole.”

Pickles shrugged, they had both been assholes.

“We both were assholes, forget about it.” He said shrugging it off.

He really wanted to get as far away from the past as possible at this point, start a new chapter. Nathan sat down beside of him on the couch, he grabbed a bottle of beer off of the table and joined the drummer in his binge drinking. 

“I was uh thinking since I'm not dating Abigail anymore maybe uh....That stuff we were doing before, we could you know....We could start doing that again, maybe.” The younger man awkwardly suggested.

“Seriously?”

He had figured initially they had only had sex, because Nathan had been stoned off of his ass. For the first few times he assumed it was due to intoxication that the singer could allow himself to have sex with another guy, but then after awhile he figured it was just to forget about Abigail, nothing more. 

“Yeah, I mean why not.” 

“I don't know, I just figured we were doing that, because.....I didn't figure you were really into that.”

He didn't figure his for the most part seemingly straight friend would want to continue having a sexual relationship with him. Not one where he had no excuse to cling onto.

“No I'm into it, really into you.....I mean sex with you, that sounds fucking weird.” 

The drummer smirked, he tried to keep himself from laughing at the now awkward rambling of his friend. He leaned in kissing him efficiently shutting him up, Nathan placed a hand on the back of his neck as he kissed him back. Pickles moved from the couch to the taller man's lap; Nathan's hands pulled at his shirt. The red head pulled away long enough to pull his shirt off, he cupped the younger man's face in his hands bringing him in closer and kissing him hard. The singer bit at his lower lip, Pickles tongue found its way into the other man's mouth. A large hand cupped his crotch rubbing at his hardening cock through his jeans, he ground down against his friend's hand. He moaned into the kiss cursing against his lips, his fingers tangled in thick black hair tugging. He continued to ground against Nathan's hand as his cock grew harder with each evenly pressured rub. The younger man moved his hands to his hips, he picked the drummer up and moved him back onto the couch. Pickles watched him through half lidded eyes, Nathan got down on his knees kneeling between the older musician's legs. His fingers found their way back into long hair this time more so petting instead of pulling. Nathan worked on unfastening his pants and puling his cock from its confines, he gave a slow stroke and looked up meeting the older man's gaze before taking the head into his mouth sucking lightly. His tongue trailed slowly up over the tip then around the head, he took more of his friend's length into his mouth sucking a bit harder this time while his hand still worked the rest of his cock. He tried to remember in his alcohol laden mind if Nathan had ever sucked him off before and came up absolutely blank on that front. He had to resist the urge to just thrust into his mouth, God he wanted to though. He moaned, Nathan took more of his cock into his mouth; his tongue continued to work around his shaft experimentally like he was trying to figure out what worked and what didn't. 

“Fuck, hey Nathan we should probably go to a different room. Fuck. One where y'know somebody can't walk in on this.” 

The younger man pulled away, he looked cautiously around the room just in case by some chance of bad luck somebody would walk in at this moment. Pickles tucked himself back into his pants with effort. He got up from the couch and began walking out of the room with Nathan right behind him, he was grateful that his room was the closest. The moment they were in the privacy of his own room Pickles removed the rest of his clothes and sat down on the bed. He watched with amusement as Nathan tried to quickly undress, he only fell over getting out of his jeans once. Had to give him credit for that, though the drummer's laughing had him glaring up at him from his position on the floor.

“Asshole” He muttered as he got up from the floor.

Nathan climbed onto the bed, Pickles wrapped his arms around his neck.

“Aw c'mon it's funny.” 

He found his pouting somewhat cute, not a metal thing to think, but then again he wasn't sure what protocol on fucking a band mate was. 

The singer kissed him, a slower less heavy pace than they had going on back in the living room. Pickles arched his back when a hand wrapped around his cock, he bucked his hips fucking the other man's hand. He hooked a leg around Nathan's back pulling him down closer against him. The singer kissed down his neck and chest, Pickles reached over grabbing the bottle of lube from beside him on the bed. Nathan took it from him and proceeded to coat his fingers in lube, he sat back on his knees, and slowly pushed two fingers inside of the older man. Pickles groaned and moved his hips trying to get him to go deeper, Nathan pushed in to the knuckle, fingers pressing against his prostate once before pulling out. He moved his fingers inside of him at a slow teasing pace that frustrated his friend.

“Nathan, fuck.” He threw his arm across his eyes, he groaned frustrated.

The singer pulled his fingers out this time not pushing them back inside. He grabbed hold of the older man's wrist pulling his arm away from his face, Nathan kissed him gently taking him by surprise. Pickles placed a hand against his cheek, they kissed again longer this time but it was still caring. He cringed slightly when Nathan's cock pushed inside of him, the younger man moaned against his lips. He pulled out then pushed back in further this time until he was all the way inside, Pickles legs wrapped around his back keeping him there. His fingers continued on back through black hair, black painted nails dug into his sides. Nathan pulled out then pushed back in, each thrust becoming just a bit faster and harder than the last. Pickles moved his hips in time with his movements, he ran his tongue down the side of the younger man's neck. The metal ball of his piercing rolling against his skin sent chills down Nathan's spine, he grabbed a fist full of dreads jerking the older man's head back. He kissed him hard, tongue invading his mouth. His right hand wrapped around Pickles cock stroking him. Nathan broke from the kiss burying his face against the crook of his neck, teeth biting into his skin. He stroked him faster, he moved his hand down to his balls rubbing then moved back up his cock. The drummer came hard into his hand, he closed his eyes tightly moaning out the singer's name until his voice went from an echoing yell to a barely understandable whisper. His body relaxed against the bed, but his legs remained wrapped around his friend's back. Nathan kissed him hungrily, Pickles nipped at his lip.

“God dude, fucking missed this. Fuck, there right there. Cum inside me, I fucking need this so bad dude you got no idea.” The drummer whispered

Nathan kissed him again, roughly as he came inside of him. His thrusts slowed to a stop, he rest his forehead against the older man's chest. He pressed his lips against his skin just now noticing he had freckles and realizing how much he liked freckles. Nathan pulled out from inside of him. Fingers combed through his sweaty black hair, he kissed the older man's chest again.

“I think I'm in love with you.” He said voice low, unsure.

When the fingers in his hair ceased and the body under his tensed he realized just what he had said.

“Shit”

Nathan pulled away quickly, he sat back on his knees looking embarrassed and like he was waiting to be yelled at. Pickles propped himself up on his elbows.

“What?”

“Fuck, nothing, nothing. Just....I'm going to uh use your shower.”

He got off of the bed and rushed into the bathroom slamming the door shut behind him. Pickles lay back down on the bed; he thought about what the younger man had said. That was certainly not how he had expected for that to go, he wondered if it was weird that he wasn't freaked out. 

Pickles gave it a minute or two until he got up and went into the bathroom after the singer. Nathan stood under the spray of water facing the shower wall, he lightly hit his head against the wall muttering to himself about how much of an idiot he was. The drummer got into the shower stall standing behind him, he wrapped his arms around the larger man's waist and leaned his forehead against his back. Nathan tensed probably waiting for some negative reaction to his admission.

“I'll wash your hair if you wash my back.”

“Uh yeah sure I can do that.” Nathan replied

Pickles stepped back allowing his friend room to move. He faced away from him, his body relaxed when he felt the cloth rubbing against his back. He'd been filled with stress caused tension for weeks now, the feeling of strong hands applying just the right amount of pressure to his back felt fucking incredible. He wondered if he could coerce him into giving him a back massage later on.

“I love you too by the way.”

Nathan stopped scrubbing his back.

“What?”

“I would of said something if you hadn't rushed outta the fucking room. Though I have to say that was really fucking bad timing dude.” He said laughing.

“Fuck you, I didn't even mean to say it. I mean I meant it, just I didn't mean to say it right then.” 

“We're you planning on telling me at some point?” The drummer asked curiously.

“I was planning on just never telling you and dying and you not knowing.”

Pickles smirked, “Afraid I was gonna freak out or something?”

“Sort of, kind of literally just got our fucking band back together. Don't need to explain to the guys that we're over again cause I got gay feelings for you.”

He turned around so he could face the younger man, he leaned up kissing him. Nathan wrapped his arms around him pulling his body closer. 

“Right so enough of that shit, come on sit down so I can wash your hair.”

After their shower they returned to Pickles bedroom, the singer lay on his back with the drummer laying mostly on top of him. His head rest against Nathan's chest.

“Oh shit I forgot I was supposed to tell you that Toki found out that we sort of didn't look for him until the last minute.”

“How did he find that out?”

“Skwisgaar told him.”

“Why the hell did he do that?”

“Fucking guilty or whatever, just thought I'd give you a heads up that he's pissed as hell at us.”

He knew there had been an actual reason he'd wanted to talk to the singer.

“Great, how long do you think that's going to last?”

“Not sure since we seriously fucked up there. Few months, maybe longer.” 

Pickles wasn't sure how long Toki could hold a grudge, from experience he learned for eerily long periods of time depending on what they had done to piss him off in the first place. It lasted until he found a way to get back at you or until he just wore out on the idea of revenge, Pickles was hoping more so for the second option.

“Think he'll leave the band?” Nathan asked.

“No I don't think the kid would do something like that, he's just angry right now.”

He couldn't see their guitarist leaving like that, he wasn't entirely sure where he would even go if he did decide to leave the band because of their lack of effort to go after him.

“I feel like shit about it.” Nathan admitted

“Me too, we'll work through it.”

They seemed to work through everything else they all did to one another. The singer grunted in agreement. They lay together in silence eventually falling asleep.


	12. Bad Reflections

One more day and he could go back to normal day to day life; okay he wouldn't be back to normal. He had to start on therapy sessions and they still were concerned about the worsening condition of his left eye. He could go back to his room though, go through the rest of the haus, and see if it would be easy or difficult to avoid his band mates in such a large place. For some reason avoiding one another could be disturbingly easy or frustratingly difficult; if Skwisgaar told the others what had happened between the two of them then it should be easy. He felt like he deserved the space. He wasn't as pissed off as he had been before, but he knew it would change, mostly it all stemmed from deep rooted pain. He was filled with pain, he always had been, but he tried to keep it buried beneath the surface. His family hadn't liked 'weakness' and his band mates were uncomfortable with emotions and hearing about a bad past. If it hadn't been for things that triggered his PTSD then they would have never found out about his childhood, if it hadn't been for the period of sharing a small apartment with four other guys then nobody would have seen his scar coated back. From time to time he would tell Skwisgaar things, he was the one out of their group he could always tell things. Either because they had smoked a lot of weed and felt in the mood to share deep existential thoughts or because Skwisgaar would ask him something personal late at night when they were in bed together. His skin tingled when he thought about those fingers dancing over his back, going lightly and lovingly over horrid scars that would never go away no matter how much he prayed. Who knew that same person could just presume him dead and not fight tooth and nail to find him and save him?

Toki ran his fingers back through his hair, it was still damp from the shower he had taken when he got up that morning. It had been Hell avoiding the mirror hanging in the bathroom while he had been getting cleaned up and dressed. There was a morbid curiosity burning in his gut making him want to look and see what exact damage was done, but he wasn't sure he could really handle that. Not right now. 

He resumed playing Skwisgaar's guitar, his fingers stumbled over the notes he was attempting to play. Playing when your peripheral vision in one eye was non existent was bordering on impossible, but guitar was the only thing he had in the room to occupy his mind. He was still disappointed Skwisgaar hadn't come back even if it was just to get his guitar, he wanted to see him again even if it just resulted in another fight. He wanted to make excuses for him, for them; wanted to understand why they left him like that. If they genuinely thought that he was dead then in a way he figured there would have been no point to look, but he hadn't been dead. Even if he had been shouldn't they have at least wanted that closure, to know for sure their friend was dead?

Making excuses for his band mates was tiring, it made the pain in his head start up all over again. He wondered how many pills he would be on by the end of the month. He was already on medication for everything else, for awhile there they had considered him bipolar; jury was still out on that one. His severe mood swings made the doctors wonder, after he had attacked and killed that guy at the rock show in a rage fueled black out, therapy had been court ordered. Real therapy, not their band therapist. Real therapy wasn't so great; it wasn't some guy talking to you for a few minutes then giving you tranquilizers or acid if you requested it. So possibly Twinkletits was more like a drug dealer than a legitimate doctor and he was completely insane, the five of them still liked the guy; he gave them drugs and didn't call them gay when they told him how practically everything in life scared them. This was going to be another instance of seeing a real psychologist though, one with degrees from Harvard and years of actual experience in the practice. He wanted to avoid all of it, talking to somebody would be nice though....

The not having somebody to talk to part killed him, it had always killed him. True that Skwisgaar had been there off and on, but it wasn't steady. During the night high or sober Skwisgaar was there for him in every way that he could want him, but during the day he wasn't. After their last music related fight he had walked away completely, not that Toki minded, and he also blamed himself for that one. He may have taken his revenge plot a bit too far. That was why it was so easy to cling onto Magnus, why it was easy to cling onto Dr. Rockso. Anybody who would listen, anybody who would hold him and let him cry, or didn't judge him for what he had been through. He fucking craved the comfort and the sensation of being loved, he'd grown up too lonely and too loveless.

Tears stung at his eyes making the left hurt when he thought about it. His guitar playing became more aggressive, he didn't even care when he made mistakes; nobody was around to hear it. He just needed to get lost inside of the music even if it sounded like angered white noise, it had no reasoning or purpose. He smiled sadly thinking that perfectly summed himself up; no reasoning, no purpose. He attracted bad people to him and let them soak into his skin like a poison, his health was crap, and anything he loved outside of his band ended up dead. He was the definition of a mess or something lethal; no wonder his parents had kept him far away from Lilehammer. They hadn't meant to protect him from the outside world, just protect the outside world from their bastard son.

The door to his hospital room opened, he expected Skwisgaar and for a second he felt anxious and hopeful. The feelings fell to quickened annoyance when he saw Murderface standing in the doorway. The older man entered the room and sat down on the other end of the bed throwing his legs up onto the mattress like this was the most casual thing in the world.

“Your playing sounds way fucking worse dude and what the hell happened to your eye?”

“Mind getting your fucking boots off of my bed?” Toki asked angrily.

The shorter man complied though he muttered complaints under his breath. Toki tried to resume his playing from earlier, but the bass player's mouth breathing and staring was distracting him.

“What do you want?”

“Jeeze just wanted to fucking check on you, God you don't have to be an asshole.”

The younger musician glared at him, his hand tightened around the neck of the guitar. He was a good step or two away from smashing it over his head. 

“I'm sorry I'm just sort of pissed about being stabbed, tortured, and left to die for what six months?” 

He expected to see some form of guilt or hear an apology, but got none. He wasn't sure why he expected something like that from Murderface.

“Your eye looks like shit dude, have you seen that shit? You fucking look like Magnus.” The older man said leaning in close to his face.

Toki placed a hand against his chest shoving him away. 

“Get the fuck out of here, I don't need to deal with you.”

Murderface got up off of the bed, he stood in front of the younger man.

“What the fuck did I do, not like anybody else is here to see you.”

“Yeah I wonder why”

Apparently nobody had given the bassist the message that he was angry with them.

“Why are you so pissed off, we fucking got you back didn't we? It's not like we spent that long, Charles fucking searched or whatever. He told us it was fucking cool, we could go party or whatever while he looked for your sorry ass. So we did.”

“You guys were out partying while I was rotting in a hole?”

Forget hitting him over the head with the guitar, he felt more so like punching him in the stomach, or maybe the throat.

“Er yeah....I mean what the fuck else were we supposed to do?”

Toki stood up, normally he towered over the bassist, but right now he towered over him like an angered wolf about to attack a small animal it had backed against a tree. Murderface looked up at him, eyes conflicting between anger and being scared.

“Fucking look for me, how about that!” 

“We did, got you back didn't we, and besides if it had been up to me we would have just fucking stayed home. Not like you ever fucking do anything, just fucking act like a stupid little kid or like you're slow or some shit. You don't fucking do shit, we fucking risk our lives just for you to be a total dick.”

Toki punched him in the face, the older man fell back onto the floor; blood gushed from his busted nose and the cut in his lip. He looked up at the guitarist through wide frightened eyes.

“Fuck you, get the fuck out of here or I swear to God...”

“Fuck, fine alright I'm going. See?”

The shorter man scrambled to his feet and went to the door only stumbling and nearly falling once, he grabbed onto the wall for support.

“See, going, fucking going...It's cool bro”

He glanced back over his shoulder like he wasn't sure if Toki would still be raging or not, the cold blooded look in his eyes told him the answer he needed. Murderface left the room slamming the door behind him, Toki could hear the sound of his boots hitting against the floor as he ran like Hell hounds were chasing his ass.

When he knew for sure the other man wouldn't come back he flopped down onto the bed. He looked at his right hand, his knuckles ached and blood stained his skin; he wasn't sure if that was his blood or Murderface's blood. He didn't feel like washing it off to be for sure.

 

The rest of the band sat gathered in the living room watching mindless reality shows on TV. Skwisgaar sat on one end of the couch with one of his guitars in hand, he had accidentally forgot one of his more favorite guitars in the hospital ward the last time he had seen Toki, but was too ashamed to go back for it. He really didn't like the idea of facing the younger musician again, not for some time. Pickles and Nathan sat on the other end of the couch, they had been by themselves until Skwisgaar had come in. Thankfully he hadn't come in while they had been making out during one of the way too many commercial breaks. Both men tried coming up with reasons they could leave the room for an hour or two that wouldn't seem suspicious. When Murderface stormed into the room cursing to himself nobody paid him any attention until he stepped in front of the TV blocking their view. The bassist looked like Hell.

“Dude what the fuck happened to you?” Pickles asked taking in the bloodied nose and busted bottom lip.

Murderface glared pointedly at him as if this was his fault.

“Toki fucking punched me.”

“Oh” Pickles responded, he had completely forgotten to tell the bassist that the Norwegian knew.

“I was uh going to tell you about that, heh yeah he um found out.”

“Wow thanks for fucking telling me asshole, think I should have known that before I went to talk to the little fucking lunatic?”

“He isn't a lunatic, he's angry.” Skwisgaar defended.

“Let me guess you told him.”

“Yeah I did”

“Fucking dildo licker, you know he's a fucking psychopath. Look what he did to my fucking face!”

“Honestly it doesn't make much difference.” Nathan commented, he continued to try to watch TV and ignore the bassist.

“Fuck you asshole and fuck you too Skwisgaar. Fucking douche bags.”

“You probably had it coming.” 

Murderface glared at the drummer, Pickles ignored him.

“Know what? You can all suck my cock, if any of you assholes want to apologize I'll be in my fucking room.”

He turned and left the room knocking a lamp over on his way out.

“Yeah that isn't gonna fucking happen” Nathan called after him.

The singer turned the volume on the TV back up when they were positive that the bassist wouldn't be coming back for probably another hour or two. Skwisgaar went back to playing this time going faster at a more nervous pace. He had an urge to go see Toki, but if he was that pissed off God knows how he would react to seeing him. He was scared that he couldn't fix this or make it better, they were just going to forever be stuck in a place where Toki hated him. He didn't want that, they had been through this so many times already; they had literally left their relationship off on Toki not wanting to be in the same room with him. He remembered their phone conversation, hearing his friend trying to conceal the fact he'd been crying while they were talking. He should have followed his instinct and gone to Toki's room, apologized for being a dick to him for the past several months. He should have held him and kissed him and made it all up to him, but he hadn't. Now so many months later they were back to separate rooms and neither knowing what to do around the other.

Skwisgaar got up and left the living room. He went back to his own room closing and locking the door behind him. He grabbed a bottle of vodka and his bong off of a dresser on the far side of his room then went back to his bed. He went for the bottle first, the burn down his throat chased away his fears and made the anxious knot in his stomach go down. The first hit from the bong filled his lungs with sweet suffocating smoke and slowed the spinning thoughts in his brain. He had told himself he wouldn't do this, not now that Toki was back and things were supposed to be different, but he couldn't deal. Not right now, he was scared to deal. Within an hour he was laying back on his bed giggling like an idiot, blood shot and half lidded eyes locked on his white ceiling that seemed to be moving. All thoughts of grudges and heart ache were out of his mind for now.

In the living room Pickles sat straddling Nathan's lap, they kissed passionately as the drummer ground his hips down against the younger man's. He could feel his erection pressing up against his ass each time he moved against him. The singer grabbed his dreads and pulled, Pickles groaned; his neck was exposed to the other man. Nathan's teeth bit into his skin leaving red marks in their wake. 

“You think the chances are good we could fuck on the couch and nobody would walk in?” Pickles asked curiously.

“I don't know, maybe? You really wanna risk that?”

He looked up at the drummer questioningly.

Pickles tangled his fingers in his hair, he kissed him hard.

“Wouldn't mind it, I want you to fuck me hard over the arm of the couch.” 

He smirked at the look in his friend's eyes, Nathan kissed him hungrily. He got up from the couch, he held the older man up and Pickles wrapped his legs around his waist and his arms around his neck holding onto him. 

“That's doable”

 

Toki lay in bed flexing his hand, it hurt; stupid Murdeface. Okay he didn't have to punch him, but the things he had said crossed a million different lines. He wasn't sure where to even start first. He didn't want to start anywhere, it would just lead to more anger and more crying. Neither solved anything. He needed to wash the blood off of his hand, but if he did that then he knew he would cave in and look in the mirror that hung over the sink. Murderface's comment had raised his curiosity. 

“Fuck it”

He got up and went into the bathroom flipping on the light. He kept his eyes downcast as he approached the sink, he turned the water on and ran his right hand beneath the faucet. He gently scrubbed at his skin, the blood washed off revealing open wounds on his knuckles as well as bruising. He could feel the mirror staring at him, burning into his soul. He had to look, just one fucking look. He took a deep breath holding it in as he lifted his head and met the person staring back at him. He released a shaky breath as he stared at himself wide eyed and scared. For the slightest moment all that he could see was Magnus staring back at him; he could see that conniving fucking smile and the gray streak through curly brown hair. For just one second he saw him in himself. He wasn't Magnus, he told himself that, but Magnus had told him differently. Told him they were so much alike, that was why Toki had needed him, because they were the same. To look at himself right now brought back those memories and those haunting and disgusting words. His left eye was pale and glazed, he could see spots of blood pooling at the bottom of what once was a bright blue, but now was deadened. He ran shaky fingers back through his hair, is this what everybody would see now?

“No, no....Fuck no, god no. I can't do this.”

He grabbed the scissors off of the counter top and grabbed his hair holding it out. He sliced the blades through his hair cutting at it only stopping to drop fist fulls of it into the sink, he kept cutting it until it was just touching his shoulders. He looked back at his reflection, his choppy hair cut, and that stupid dead eye. He didn't see Magnus this time. Just himself. Just a frightened twenty-three year old from Norway with a blinded eye. Something pathetic and something deranged. He dropped to the floor moving backwards until his back hit against the wall, he pulled his legs up against himself wrapping his arms around them. He cried ignoring the dull pain in his head as he did so.

“Why do I deserve this?”

Both his father and Magnus would reply that he deserved it because he was alive.


	13. Their Origins

The worst part of nightmares was when you woke up alone. Toki didn't like waking up alone, it wasn't uncommon, but it wasn't something he thought he could handle right now. When he woke up on the bathroom floor he had been disorientated and scared. The cold tile against his face for a moment had startled him into believing he was back in that building, back with Magnus. For a moment he waited for somebody to grab him by his hair and haul him up. He was all alone though, so fucking alone. He remained in the bathroom, he sat with his back to the bathtub and his eyes locked on the doorway. He didn't trust anything, not so soon after waking up; he expected to hear foot steps, expected to see that bastard. He told himself over and over again in his mind that he was back home, Magnus was very dead, and this was just paranoia. This was psychological damage caused by a very traumatizing event that he put himself into. He was so stupid, stupid enough to go and fall into a trap like that; he had nearly died all because of his loneliness. As much as he hated to admit it Murderface had been right about the things he'd said to him. Not like he regretted punching the bassist, but he hadn't been far off with his comments. Toki didn't handle alone well, because he didn't feel like he should be alone. Every sign pointed towards by some strange passage of fate that he was designed to be alone, but he never accepted that. 

An hour of sitting on the floor he realized nothing was coming to take him away. He climbed to his feet and went back to the other room, he looked around cautiously just to settle the nagging paranoia in his mind. There was nothing, nobody. He was as alone as a person could possibly be, he found no comfort in it. He wanted somebody with him, but the thought of seeing his band mates made him angry. 

He sat down on the bed and picked Skwisgaar's guitar up and began playing. He wasn't sure what time it was only that it was late, sometime tomorrow he would be able to go back to his own bedroom. He would have to figure out what to do with Skwisgaar's guitar; maybe he would just leave it in the hospital wing. If the older man wanted it back then he could go look for it, Toki wanted to avoid going anywhere near him. He didn't know when he would be able to go around him again, he couldn't determine that. His emotions were something he didn't have the world's greatest control over; his anger and rage he didn't have any control over. He couldn't even place it on a scale of one to ten, if he had to then he had negative hundred control if even that. It felt strange when he was pissed off; it felt like a black flame burning in his stomach that spread like his blood was kerosine. It never felt like it was him, it was something or somebody else. He remembered once referring to himself as a Demon; he didn't even know why, he didn't remember a whole lot form then. That was the problem; rage took over, something else took over and he didn't remember much. He'd come back feeling tired, confused, or depressed. If he were lucky he would come back and not be covered in blood.

When his rage resulted in homicide he vaguely remembered coming out of it and being in a holding cell, soaked in blood. Pickles had been in the cell with him also stained with blood. The drummer had no clue what Toki had done, but he had apparently gotten into a fight of his own. The guitarist hadn't been in too much of a talking mood after that, he'd actually been terrified. He'd had no control over himself and that was bad, that was the sort of thing his parents warned him of. The type of thing Magnus told him they had in common. He remembered Magnus' taunting; the sick shit he would say to him when he was in one of his better moods. It made the Norwegian deeply regret sharing with him every secret and demon that his mind held, but that's what happened when nobody was willing to listen. 

Nathan and Pickles had always looked out for him and worried about him even if they rarely expressed those actual sentiments. Murderface always considered him to be violently insane and borderline retarded, and then Skwisgaar seemed genuinely interested and caring when he was in the right mood. There was a sudden point when he cared a lot, it seemed out of nowhere, but it had been an obvious build up. He had enjoyed every night he got to spend in Skwisgaar's room. Every night watching him play guitar, he loved kissing him, and having him touch his scars. Skwisgaar could touch him in places that other people weren't allowed to. 

He smiled sadly to himself thinking about how his friends always mocked him for his lack of a sex life, he was good looking, and women loved a sweet pretty boy. He knew that and there were plenty of women and men alike he could have and some he did, but they wanted to touch him. Their hands would touch his scarred back or shoulders, they would notice the obvious marks and want to comment. Sometimes genuine concern, other times depending on the person or how inebriated they were depended on how insulting their comments could be. Some told him he would be perfect looking if it weren't for the hideous scars. He hated that, he hated them. Those were times he would throw whoever he had with him out and have Skwisgaar come to his room. He would tell the older man what had happened, his friend would tell him those people were just assholes. Toki agreed with him, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. Something about comments or the wrong kind of touch would send him all the way back to Norway, back to being forced onto hands and knees on the snow coated ground. He would count in his head each time the whip hit against his small body, the burning and the blood rolling down his skin used to be the only thing that was keeping him warm. That was until Skwisgaar was holding him, arms wrapped around him and lips pressing against the top of his head then his back. He never flinched away when he touched him, if anything he leaned into his touch. He would arch his body against him when they had sex, he needed Skwisgaar to touch him. 

All the way up to a few days ago he needed it, he still longed for it. He had new scars now, he had fading marks around his neck, and a cut beneath his left eye. There was a sickening scar where Magnus had stabbed him in the name of revenge, he wanted Skwisgaar to touch him there and make him feel real again.

Toki ran his fingers back through his hair momentarily confused by the shortness of it. Right he'd chopped a good bit off after he had seen Magnus in his reflection. He touched his index finger under his eye, he had nearly forgotten. 

He continued to play the guitar he held doing his best to play tracks he'd heard Skwisgaar play a million times before. He got one minute into Impeach God before his fingers stumbled over the next note. This lack of vision was highly irritating; if he couldn't work through this then they really wouldn't need him in the band anymore.

He groaned and lay back on the bed. Fuck it, nobody was listening anyways. He closed his eyes and slipped from one of their songs into an Iron Maiden song. When he'd been thirteen he'd run away and gone into town, he had lived with a boy who had a father who owned a black metal record shop. The family had welcomed him surprisingly enough, their son had been a bit of a bastard initially, but had been more than happy to expose a boy from a Christian household to the wonders of metal music. He had started Toki on Iron Maiden records, he found it funny how enraptured the teen was by the songs, by the concepts and the stories. He'd been impressed as twenty types of Hell when he came back to his room after a day from working at his father's shop to find Toki playing his electric guitar keeping up pace with the songs that played on the old album. He had learned quickly, never from lessons; he hadn't had money for that and he had better plans. Toki had the natural ability to play, to learn from watching and listening. 

Iron Maiden was still one of his favorite metal bands, it reminded him of simpler times. He had been so young and cleaning his wounds, he had started attending public school and found out despite what the members of his father's church told him he was in fact highly intelligent. He was bright, optimistic, and got along with people even the ones who were less than kind in return. It had possibly been a stupid idea to leave Norway and go to the US when he had gotten older, but he had had his dreams. Dreams of leaving just to be very sure his father could never hunt him down and take him back to the woods, back to the punishment hole. Being homeless had been hell; he had earned enough money to get to America, but nothing else. He had spent so long hiding in alleys, sometimes going to shelters, but mostly hiding inside of empty dumpsters. 

The greatest day of his life had been when that tall gorgeous man dressed all in white had asked him to join his band. 

Shit he really wished that he had his phone with him, just one conversation and maybe things could get better.

 

Skwisgaar sat on his bed, he scrolled through messages on his phone. He looked over every text message he had sent to Toki back when he had been missing and possibly even dead. It was odd, because now he knew the younger musician wasn't dead; he was in the same house as him. He had it in his mind that it would be so different. What did he expect though? They had screwed Toki over royally, he had every right to feel angry and betrayed. He had ever right to yell at Skwisgaar and hit Murderface. He definitely had the right to do the second part. 

He wondered how much longer it would be until Toki was okay with him again. He didn't know if he could do anything to help or if anything he could do or say would just hurt the situation further. He just wanted his friend back, his band mate. He wanted to call him his partner, his boyfriend, but he'd never exactly done much to deserve to call Toki that. Skwisgaar was never really worthy of being in a real relationship with another person. There had been that girl in Sweden; she had been cute and kind, she had even been a musician herself. He remembered feeling like he could truly love her, spend his life with her, but that had been until his band mates came to bring him back to the states. There had been this weird feeling of guilt when they had come into the pub to talk to him and he had to see Toki and Toki had to see him with her. He felt like in some odd way he was betraying whatever the Hell they had together and he felt like his feelings for his friend betrayed her in the same way. He had spent weeks after leaving Sweden by Toki's side, the rhythm guitarist never really said much about it. Toki would whisper in his ear that he had missed him, Skwisgaar would look into his eyes and think about the girl from Sweden. 

Skwisgaar was a nervous wreck with love and caring, letting people in. His mother had been less than kind and often gone completely. She demeaned her son every chance that she got; he cooked for her, cleaned the house daily, helped her get dressed, held her hair back while she puked, and brushed her hair for her. When her male companions got too drunk and too worked up and would shove her young son around, occasionally a man would shove him too hard and he'd hit his head against a wall or slam his back against the edge of a table. Other times there would be men who would flat out punch him or slap him across the face, his mother would laugh. She was drunk and by the following day she would apologize and swear it would never happen again. She did that a lot; she apologized, said things would change, or that nobody would touch him again.

He wiped the tears from his eyes and laughed to himself thinking about those stupid meaningless promises. Skwisgaar's mind lingered on his first sexual encounter when he had been thirteen, a female friend of his mother's with long black hair. His mother had stepped out and left the two of them alone, the woman made him feel uneasy. He felt himself shake when he thought about her, tears fell from his eyes as he thought about how she had pinned him down and done things to him that at the time confused and terrified him. He knew about sex, God he had walked in on his mother more times than he'd care to think about...He had locked himself in his room afterward, had played guitar until his fingers bled, and cried until everything ached. Two days later he had come forward about what had happened, he thought his mother would coddle him; he expected her to give her usual speech on not letting another person hurt her darling baby, but she hadn't. Instead she had smacked him and accused him of being a liar. 

It wasn't too long until he was out of her home, he had joined band after band and crashed on couches of band mates. Anything to keep him away from his mother, it didn't matter that he'd been a homeless youth relying on groupies and guys he hardly knew who were much older than him for a place to live. It didn't matter that there would be the people who demanded favors of him, favors that left him feeling dirty and empty. He had gotten away from his mother, from her men, and from that cruel older woman. It was years until he felt in control of his sex life, of his body, but somewhere along the way control disappeared and he was something empty and dirty all over again.

The first time he had kissed Toki he had hated himself for it. Somebody so fucking sweet. He had wanted to be close to something sweet, he'd wanted to feel alive. He had felt the sparks he heard about when they had kissed, those soft lips against his. He had wanted him, had needed him, but Skwisgaar was filthy. He told himself he didn't deserve that, deserve him. Only a near death experience, the rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins, and Toki's body against his had allowed him to feel what he'd told himself he didn't deserve.

He had tried, really tried to be something....Something different for him, but he never knew for sure what he was trying to be or if he could do it. It wasn't until he realized just how deeply he cared, that he was in love with him that he got scared. He felt things he didn't know he could feel, didn't know he deserved to feel or have returned. There was no way he could have ever explained that. 

Skwisgaar continued scrolling through messages to nowhere.

'It scares me that I love you, I'm not used to this. I'm never sure if you would have loved me back.'

At least in his text messages and his voice mails he had been able to tell Toki his feelings. He spoke every fear and worry, there were voice mails he had left that consisted mostly of himself crying and saying how he couldn't do this anymore. Even now when things were supposed to be getting better he wasn't entirely sure that he could do this. There was no obvious next step, no guide on what to do or where to go. It was always the wrong time. 

He sat his phone down on the bed, he took one last drink from the bottle then tossed it to the floor. He lay down on his side pulling his legs up against himself. What if this turned into another time where there would never be a second chance?


	14. Hurt and Rage

There was one simple and very obvious rule after Toki got back from the hospital ward; stay away from him. The rhythm guitarist had bluntly expressed that he didn't want to see them, not at the moment, and after he had punched Murderface they were more than willing to respect that boundary. He spent one whole day in his room sleeping and then half of the next day contemplating whether or not he should see the exact details of what his band mates had done while he'd been away. He already knew he wouldn't find anything good, he would find more things that would anger him. That's why it took him nearly half a day to get online and see what he had missed while they hadn't been looking for him.

To say what he found pissed him off would have been an under statement. To find out they hit practically every bar, pub, and night club they could find on the face of the Earth disgusted him. To see them laughing, smiling, and stoned out of their fucking minds repulsed him. To hear them tell people with their camera phones out and reporters that their missing rhythm guitarist was off somewhere, it didn't matter where he was, and why did everybody give a fuck about where Toki was? 

Every picture, video, and comment pissed him off. He spent months thinking about them, remembering them, and missing them. They had been his family, they had taken him in off of the streets and raised him. He assumed to some degree in their own confused way that they cared about him, that they would have done so much more to go and find him. He understood that he should have never gone towards Magnus, never should have become friends with him, he accepted responsibility for that part. That didn't mean they had the right to leave him to rot, to be slaughtered by two lunatics. They had no right to make Charles look for him, they had no right to just assume he had died and it was time to move on. Time to start playing shows again and replace him with a hologram until they could get a new, better guitar player. They only looked when record sales had begun to go down, only looked for him when they found out how fucked they would be if they couldn't find him. It explained a lot, it made his head hurt. He told himself to close out of the tabs he had open, to stop looking and stop reading, but he couldn't get himself to. He just kept on going, because some masochistic stupid part of his brain told him that he needed to know all of this. Some part of him wanted him to know just how stupid he was for trusting these people. Every picture and video of Skwisgaar hurt, it stung; he felt betrayed and lied to. Why the hell did Skwisgaar spend all of those days in the hospital telling him that he was in love with him, why the hell did he do that when he spent so many months stoned and fucking every woman he could find? If he loved him he would have done something, at least worried about him, but instead he joined in on not caring. Too many videos of him saying he didn't understand why people cared where Toki was at, it wasn't like he was a good guitarist anyways. He didn't contribute or do much, he was just there, and not like anybody had noticed him before. 

His bedroom door opened and Skwisgaar cautiously stepped into the room right as the younger musician hurled his laptop in his direction. The blond haired man side stepped quickly getting out of the way, he flinched and held his arm up shielding his face when the computer broke in half and fell to the floor with a loud thud. He looked up wide eyed at Toki who now stood glaring up at him. 

“Why are you in here?” He demanded

Skwisgaar remained where he was, wide eyed and terrified. Toki could only think about every bull shit lie he'd heard from the man standing before him. He could only think of the videos he'd just seen of him and the pictures. He could only think about how Skwisgaar was completely incapable of loving or caring, he didn't have feelings for anyone outside of himself.

Toki stepped towards him, he shoved him back against the wall.

“Why the fuck are you here, who said I want to see you?”

The taller man looked like he was ready to bolt, but was too scared to do so. 

“I wanted to talk to you” he finally managed to answer, his voice a soft whisper.

“Were you going to tell me about how you spent six months fucking sluts while I had a lunatic treating me like a dog?”

The other man didn't respond, it wasn't like he expected or wanted for him to.

“I can't fucking believe you, I shouldn't be so dumb! I should have fucking known you would do this. You should have just gone with the original plan and fucking replaced me, I'm not a good guitarist anyway. Remember?” He smacked the taller man hard across the face.

The action shocked Skwisgaar.

“We weren't going to replace you, you know we wouldn't do that.”

“Fucking liar. If it hadn't been for money you never would have come for me. I would have stayed there, Magnus would have gutted me, and you never would have even come for my body. You selfish fucking bitch. I don't know why I believed you when you told me that you're in love with me.”

“I'm sorry, I told you that; I'm sorry Toki. I really do love you, you don't understand.”

He was tired of hearing that he didn't understand. He could feel the black flame burning inside of him, it only made him angrier. He wanted to take out all of his pain and his hatred on this singular human being, he needed somebody to blame for every single thing. 

He punched him hard in the stomach causing Skwisgaar to double over in pain. He grabbed him by his hair shoving him down onto the floor. The older man remained curled up on the floor coughing, an arm wrapped around his aching stomach. 

“I'm sick of hearing you lie. You don't love me, you don't love anybody. You only care about yourself and I don't even think you're able to do that much. You're just a selfish slut like your mother.”

Skwisgaar slowly climbed to his feet, he didn't leave the room; he just stood there like he was waiting for more.

“I'm sick of looking at you, get out of here or I swear to fuck Skwisgaar.”

The older man looked up meeting his eyes, for a second he felt the anger ebb away when he saw the tears in his eyes. He told himself that Skwisgaar had no right to be sad, no right to be upset about any of this.

“Just kick my ass, I deserve it.”

It wasn't like it really took any prompting to get Toki to punch him in the face knocking him back down onto the ground. Before he could kick him somebody grabbed him from behind and lifted him up off of the ground. Toki kicked and tried to elbow whoever had him.

“Fucking knock it off. Skwisgaar are you fucking stupid or something, get the hell out of here.”

The blond haired man sat on the floor for a second looking up at Nathan who kept a firm hold on Toki who gave up on struggling the second he realized Nathan was the one restraining him. The lead guitarist got to his feet and left the room with his head lowered. When Nathan was completely sure that Skwisgaar wasn't coming back in and he knew Toki wouldn't just chase him down he released his hold on the brunette.

 

Skwisgaar stalked into the living room, he wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand. He had possibly forgotten just how strong Toki was and how violent he could be when he was pissed off. If it hadn't been for Nathan intervening then he knew he would have ended up in way worse shape. When he sat down on the couch Pickles turned his attention from the TV and to the guitarist.

“Holy fuck, I fucking knew you would do something stupid.”

“I don't need to hear this.”

“Seriously what the hell dude, you know how the kid is when he's angry. Like he's not even angry, he's like bat shit right now.”

“I know, okay?”

He hadn't expected a normal rational conversation. He had falsely hoped that Toki hadn't gone online yet, he had figured he could go in and just explain the things that had happened to him. When he thought about it there still was no way to make their actions sound reasonable. He had deserved to get beaten up, he had gone in knowing that was what would happen, and it's what he had wanted.

“So why did you go in there?” The drummer asked curiously.

Skwisgaar only answered when he realized his friend wasn't going to judge him or make fun of him for being so stupid.

“I deserved to get my ass kicked for what I did to him, everything I've done to him.”

The words had hurt almost more than being kicked and hit. Being told he was like his mother had confirmed a thousand different fears that hung heavily over his head. He had never wanted to be like her, he didn't want to be an object or manipulative. He rubbed at his eyes when he felt himself start to cry again.

“Maybe you should go take a bath, fucking get yourself cleaned up. Ya look like shit dude.” 

Skwisgaar nodded his agreement, he got up and went back to his room.

Stretching and bending hurt, but the warm water felt nice against his skin. He leaned his head back against the wall above his bath tub, he should have just stayed out of Toki's way. It would have been the more intelligent thing to do, but he wasn't prone to doing the intelligent thing. He was more so prone to doing the dumb rash thing where he only had the slightest idea of what he was going to do or say. It wasn't like he had anything new that he wanted to say; the same recycled crap. The same things that Toki hadn't wanted to hear days ago and sure as fuck didn't want to hear now.

He thought about the way Toki looked, how pissed off he had been. With how short his hair was now he looked so much like he had when they had gotten him off of the streets, but he looked so broken now. Years of being surrounded by the wrong type of people had worn him down physically and mentally, Skwisgaar thought that for awhile now. He wondered how better off Toki would have been somewhere else, if he'd just had a normal life instead of getting involved with them. He would have been much better off if he'd never gotten involved with Skwisgaar. 

The crying started again when he thought over what Toki had said to him. He was right, wasn't he? Skwisgaar had known he shouldn't get involved with another person, he wasn't good enough to be in love. He just made the ones he loved feel like shit.

 

Nathan wasn't good with comfort or handling people. He was great with punching people, yelling at people, and ordering them around. He wasn't great with actually handling emotional aspects of others though. It was why he normally was so grateful that Skwisgaar or Pickles were the ones who would take care of any problems Toki had. He talked to them, because they talked back to him, and listened and could figure out how to respond to what he said or what he felt. Nathan wasn't good with this. He had had no problem storming into the Norwegian's room and pulling him off of Skwisgaar, had been fine with yelling at him and throwing him onto his bed. When Toki hadn't started going off on him or trying to kick his ass he wasn't sure what to do. The younger man sat on his bed staring down at the floor, choppy hair falling over his face. Nathan stood off to the side wondering what the fuck he should even be doing right now. 

“Are you uh....You cool now?”

The younger man looked at him and shook his head.

“Oh....I should probably go then.”

“Nathan can you stay here?” 

Fuck he really wasn't good with this sort of thing. Nathan turned away from the door and went over towards the bed. He sat down next to the younger musician; he felt himself inwardly cringe when Toki wrapped his arms around him and buried his face against his chest. No Nathan was not good with comforting people or holding them while they cried and got snot and tears on his clothes. This really wasn't his job. He had a slight urge to go punch Skwisgaar for this.

“I'm sorry” Toki muttered pulling away from the older man.

Nathan moved a good inch or two away from his friend. 

“Yeah it's, it's fine....You know you probably shouldn't have hit Skwisgaar, right?”

Not that he blamed him, but he sort of felt bad for the guy.

“He shouldn't have come in here.”

“No yeah that was stupid, look we're all seriously sorry about what happened. It was really fucking selfish.”

Nathan did feel bad, he spent months internally freaking out about the situation. It was too much like having a kid of his own, thinking somebody he had sort of raised being dead scared him deeply. Especially when he thought about how it was all his fault that it happened and yet he was supposed to be the leader.

“I know, I'm not really that mad at you.”

“Wait, you're not?”

The younger man shook his head.

“I'm mad, but I don't know; I guess it sort of just hurts.”

He wasn't sure how to explain it, it changed constantly.

“Then why the hell did you kick Skwisgaar's ass?”

Toki remained silent; it was unfair to be so pissed off at Skwisgaar more than the rest of his friends. 

“Is this because you guys were um....Were you know...”

He didn't want to think about the relationship the guitarists had with each other, he really didn't. He spent years pretending he didn't notice how often they spent their time in each others rooms alone with the door closed, how much time they were generally together, or the way sometimes Skwisgaar would awkwardly flirt with the rhythm guitarist. 

“I just thought he'd be different, not sure why I expected him to care.”

“You know if you actually talked to the guy instead of kicking his ass then you'd know differently.”

Toki looked curiously up at Nathan, the older man felt slightly uneasy seeing his mismatched eyes. It made him feel either like digging up Magnus and beating his ass or beating himself up for letting any of this happen. 

“What do you mean?”

“I'm not getting into it, just when you've calmed down then the two of you should talk.”

Nathan got up from the bed and started towards the door, he paused long enough just to make sure Toki wouldn't want to say or ask anything else. When he was sure he left closing the door behind him. The brunette gave it a minute before he lay down on his bed and started to cry. He wasn't sure he could or wanted to go and talk to Skwisgaar, not after that. It wasn't the first time something like that had happened, but that didn't make it any better. The fact that Skwisgaar wanted him to beat him up confused and upset him. Did he ask to make Toki feel better or himself?

He wasn't sure he could go face him right now, not for awhile. Toki didn't know if he hated him, loved him, or just wanted him to go the hell away. The rage was gone now all that was left was an intense feeling of sadness.


	15. Water Dreams

Nathan sat on his bed, Pickles lay on his stomach with his head on the younger man's lap. The singer's fingers pet through his dreadlocks and occasionally the drummer found himself playing with a hole that was forming in the larger man's jeans. 

“I was wondering; why didn't you ever tell me about those dreams, y'know the shit about the whales?” Pickles asked, he continued to poke his index finger through the fraying white threads.

“I figured you'd laugh at me or some shit.”

He considered it for a moment to figure out if he would have done that or not. If out of nowhere Nathan had ever approached him and talked about hearing whales talking to him then possibly Pickles would have regarded him like he'd lost his shit completely.

“So what's it like?”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno the dreams or hearing stuff”

“Just fucking dreams....Every dream I have there's an ocean, normally I'm in it and there's this huge fucking whale that talks to me. She says stuff to me, I used to not think much about it until it happened a lot more.”

“That's what you heard talk to you when you busted the record, right?”

Nathan shifted uncomfortably, even now he still didn't like to think about or talk about destroying the album. 

“Yeah, the whale told me to. That sounds crazy, that's why I didn't say anything.”

The whale had been the voice in his head telling him to drink tequila, the voice that told him to destroy the master record. It had made him feel crazy doing that, it didn't help that he had to pretend he had done it just because he didn't like a few tracks or the way that the album art looked. He understood how his friends thought he was an entitled bastard after that had happened, but they would have wanted him loaded up on medications if he had told them he destroyed their album because a voice had told him to.

Pickles hooked two fingers under the hole at the knee of Nathan's jeans.

“We know you're not crazy though.”

If Nathan had told them before everything that had happened he wasn't so sure about it. He wasn't sure how any of them would have reacted, he didn't blame Nathan for keeping it to himself.

“Will you stop fucking around with the hole in my jeans, I want like another fucking couple months out of these before I start looking like an asshole.” The younger man complained, he grabbed Pickles wrist and pulled his hand away from his leg.

The older man sat up.

“Fine, not like you own eighty fucking pairs of blue jeans.” He remarked rolling his eyes.

Nathan was studying the now slightly larger rip in his jeans. Pickles kissed him distracting him.

“You owe me a new pair of jeans asshole.” 

“Love you too Nate.” 

He kissed him again pulling the singer down on top of him when he lay back on the bed.


	16. Mending

A month of unbearable tension and stress at Mordhaus made Nathan feel like he was going to go crazy. Toki didn't want to go near Skwisgaar and Skwisgaar by now was finally getting the point that he should possibly stay out of Toki's way. The only problem was this meant them leaving rooms when the other would enter. If Skwisgaar entered the living room while Toki was there the younger musician would stop talking or he'd get up and leave the room, if Toki entered a room that Skwisgaar was in then the blond haired man would avert his eyes and go completely silent minus the sound of his fingers quickly working over the cords of his guitar. A whole month of this had the singer ready to strangle both of his friends. That was why he was more than happy when Pickles suggested they all get out of the haus and go drink. He didn't care if Toki and Skwisgaar begrudgingly agreed to go, he didn't even care if they talked or not; it gave him a chance to be around enough people that he didn't have to notice their annoying shared silence.

Pickles on the other hand ended up with Toki by his side for the night. The drummer sat at the bar ordering shot after shot, Toki sat by him drinking until the older man made him stop.

“I'm not even drunk.” The younger complained

“That's the point, you don't get drunk.” Pickles chastised, he hated playing babysitter with his youngest friend's drinking habits.

The bartender sat a shot glass down between them, Pickles grabbed it before Toki could get it. The younger guitarist glared up at him, it reminded him of when Toki had been under age and would complain that they wouldn't let him drink until he was eighteen. 

“I haven't had alcohol in a really long time, please Pickle.”

“You're on what your diabetic stuff, pain killers, and fucking prozac or whatever. Last thing you need is to get drunk.”

Toki continued to pout and glare at the older man until he realized it wouldn't do any good, besides he was right. His therapist had found shockingly enough that he was deeply depressed. He suffered from mood swings, deep bouts of depression, and frequent nightmares. He was grateful for the paid help, but every time he had to pull out the orange prescription bottles from the cabinet in his bathroom it stressed him out. He didn't want to live his life medicated; bad enough he had medical problems now he was finally getting the help for the psychological problems. He preferred the days where he would just get drunk and stoned, get into fights, and 'accidentally' get himself hurt. This was nowhere near as fun, if anything it left him feeling tired and rather drained.

He should have just stayed home, but Nathan had told them all they had to go out. He looked around the bar, he couldn't spot Nathan, but he spotted Murderface unsuccessfully hitting on a woman in a short black dress. He continued to spy on the bassist until he saw him place a hand on the woman's waist followed by her slapping him hard across the face before storming off. He found himself smirking at the shocked look on his friend's face. Toki never understood how Murderface could be shocked when women rejected him, he literally just bugged them or groped them until they beat the hell out of him. He moved from watching the pudgier member of their band to looking for their guitar God. He hadn't exactly spoken to Skwisgaar since he beat him up, he'd been upset and guilty feeling afterward. It just felt like the best solution was to ignore Skwisgaar to the best of his ability, the older man apparently agreed because he returned the favor.

Toki spotted him sitting at a booth completely alone. He sat there looking around at the people crowding the building, Toki was actually surprised to see him alone. Come to think of it he was pretty sure ever since he got back home he hadn't seen Skwisgaar with a single groupie. He continued to stare at the other man doing his best to not be overly obvious. He looked tired and stressed out, it was like he was hardly taking care of himself lately.

“You gotta talk to him eventually dude.”

Toki turned his attention back to Pickles.

“Why?”

“Makes recording awkward if our guitarists are ignoring each other.”

“I can play just fine without talking to him.”

Pickles sighed heavily.

“He's been putting himself through Hell ever since you went missing.”

“Right that's why there's so many pictures of him drinking and making out with people. Real fucking worried.”

“I know he's a jackass, he didn't even want to really do any of that stuff. We sort of got him to, he was fucking pathetic dude. Wouldn't come out of his fucking room or anything, you think he actually enjoyed himself that whole time? Why do you think we were all out getting fucking wasted for.”

Toki averted his eyes. He hadn't really asked them why they reacted to him going missing the way that they had, it hadn't taken long at all for him to begin talking to his other three band mates. Skwisgaar was the one he continued to give the hardest time over this, partially from fear of where they could even go from this point.

“Look I got something for you, fucking look at it then decide what you wanna do.”

Pickles placed a dethphone on the bar between them, Toki looked from the familiar cracked screen then up at the drummer.

“Um why do you have my phone?”

“Might of um forgotten to give it back to you, only had it for a couple weeks now. Just look through the fucking messages and stuff.” 

Toki picked up his phone, turned it on, and was met with a memory full of text messages and voice mails. Nearly every single one of them appeared to be from the same number. He went through the texts first, glancing at every other one.

'Things aren't the same without you, it sucks really bad. I don't know why I keep messaging you, you aren't getting these messages, but I like to hope that maybe you are.'

'I love you, I love you a lot and it scares me. It scared me before too, because I'm not really sure how to do this whole relationship thing....I guess I suck at it, maybe it's best that we can't be in a relationship. I would have fucked it up so badly. I fucked up whatever we had anyways. I fuck everything up.'

He scrolled through a few more going back to older ones.

'Solos. You can have any solo you want, all of them. Just tell me I'm having a really fucking bad nightmare and you're still alive. I don't like this, I like the reality where you're here bugging the shit out of me.'

'There are a lot of things I never told you about myself, I wish I had. I wish I had said and done a lot of things, because maybe you would still be here right now. If it does turn out that you're alive I want to make things better between us. You deserve so many good things.'

Every message in his inbox looked about the same. Message after message of Skwisgaar telling him that he loved him, promising him the world, and telling him how scared he was. He saw that the messages went all the way back to the day after the funeral. He had been messaging him ever since then, the oldest messages consisted of him asking if this was just a really bad dream, some were nonsense he knew was sent while Skwisgaar had been high. He moved from the text messages and onto the voice mails.

“Hey....I don't know why I'm calling you again, I guess because I can pretend you're alive. You could still be alive, we don't know that. If they find you I'm not sure what they'll find or if I'm ready for it. I just want to wake up and have you back home....I miss you so much. It hurts, it really hurts; I'm sorry about everything Toki.”

He heard Skwisgaar's voice break off as he began crying.

“I love you, I love you a lot and I don't know what to do with it.”

The message ended. He couldn't bring himself to listen to another one.

He held his phone in his hands staring down at it. He looked over towards the table where Skwisgaar was seated; the blond haired man was watching him, his eyes locked on the phone Toki held. He met the younger guitarist's eyes then quickly averted them.

Toki got up from the bar and went over to where Skwisgaar was sitting. He sat the phone down in front of him, Skwisgaar stared at it and the messages lit up on the screen. He was too embarrassed to look at the man standing next to him, he hadn't been able to look at him for some time now.

“So I can have any solo I want?” Toki asked drawing the older man's attention.

Skwisgaar smirked, “Any one, you can have anything.”

He sat down on the seat across from him, he was disappointed that Skwisgaar still wouldn't look up at him. He kept his hands on the table top and his eyes locked on the phone; his eyes were blood shot and Toki was pretty sure it would take nothing at all for him to start crying. Toki reached across the table placing his hands over Skwisgaar's, for a second he thought he would pull away, but he kept his hands where they were. The brunette traced his fingers over his hands thinking about the hundreds of times he'd held them, and all of the times they had lovingly caressed his scarred skin.

“We should talk, we haven't said anything to each other for a month now.”

Longer really, yelling at Skwisgaar didn't count as talking. He didn't want to think about that though.

The older man took hold of his right hand, he traced over Toki's hand.

“I didn't think you would see any of those messages, they just became a stress release for me after awhile.”

“You had that much faith in me being alive?”

He didn't mean for the question to come out as bitter as it did.

“When I saw a knife go through your body, no not really.” 

Toki vaguely remembered much from when it had happened; just a lot of fear and an insane amount of pain. 

“Let's go outside and talk, less crowded in the parking lot.” He offered.

He pulled his hands away from Skwisgaar's and grabbed his phone shoving it into the pocket of his jeans. Crowds made him uncomfortable, small loud places weren't exactly his favorite thing lately. Skwisgaar followed behind him through the crowded bar and out into the lot. There were far less people standing about outside, some groups leaning against their cars and chatting while they smoked, but nothing else. The cool air and the darkness made him feel more relaxed, he could think more clearly out here. Skwisgaar stood with his back against the brick wall of the building and his eyes locked on the pavement. Toki would do anything just to have the other musician meet his eyes for even a single second. He stepped up to him taking hold of his right hand holding it in his own, Skwisgaar's thumb rubbed over his knuckles.

“I'm sorry that I hit you, I shouldn't have done that to you.”

He had been angry, but it didn't give him the right to hurt Skwisgaar. 

“I wanted you to and those things you said to me were right. I'm just an abusive whore like my mother.”

Toki strongly regretted what he had said to him, it had been out of line. He knew enough about Skwisgaar's mother, the way she left him alone, let men hurt him, and the way she had made him into some sort o f a servant the days she decided to hang around her home. He knew how his friend felt about her, how the last thing he wanted to do was be that way.

“No you aren't, you aren't anything like her.”

Skwisgaar bit nervously at his lower lip.

“Right that's why I always put you down for your guitar skills and why I couldn't commit to you.”

“Skwisgaar...” Toki placed a hand against the older man's cheek, he brushed stray tears off of his skin.

He thought about when Skwisgaar had saved him, when he'd been holding him and crying. 

“Hey it's okay, please don't cry.” He whispered stepping closer until their bodies were nearly touching.

He leaned his forehead against the older man's, his fingers combed back through his hair in an attempt at calming him. Things were so wrong and so messed up between the two of them, but there was something always connecting them and pulling them together.

“I'm so sorry, I'm sorry for everything I've done to you. I just missed you so fucking much, I don't know if I can give you what you deserve.”

“We'll work through it, we've done this plenty of times before.”

“That's the problem, I don't want to keep making you hate me.”

Hate had been a constant, a one sided constant. It just seemed safer if Toki hated him, but when he noticed just how badly it hurt Skwisgaar when he would say it to him it started to feel less safe and more so poisonous to whatever they had between them.

“I love you too much to hate you. We'll figure it out.”

Skwisgaar finally met his eyes, he looked so damn scared. It was like he was waiting to lose everything all over again when he barely had it back. 

“I love you too” 

Toki smiled sadly, he pressed his lips against Skwisgaar's kissing him gently. He wrapped his arms around the older man's neck and Skwisgaar wrapped his arms around his waist holding him closely against him. The kiss deepened turning from gentle and hesitant to passionate and drawn out, Toki moaned softly when teeth bit at his lip. He tangled his fingers in Skwisgaar's blond hair, he needed him as much as Skwisgaar needed him.

“Hey assholes we're fucking going, come on!” Nathan's voice bellowed from not too far away.

The two of them broke apart, Skwisgaar rubbed at his eyes hoping that by the time they got to the limo he would look less like he'd been crying and more like he'd been getting stoned. Toki kissed him one last time before taking his hand and leading him to the car where the rest of their friends waited for them.

When they arrived back at Mordhaus they walked down the hall holding hands, Toki stopped at his room, Skwisgaar tugged on his hand.

“What?”

“I'm not sleeping in your room.”

“Why not?”

“The bed is too fucking small.” Skwisgaar complained.

“It's not that small”

“Really, because you don't even fit on it. You get a real bed then I'll sleep in there, let's go to my room.”

“Fine, God you complain a lot.” Toki commented as they walked down the hall towards the other man's room.

He had to agree; his room was small, he liked small spaces. They freaked him out, but in an odd way there was a sense of comfort. Everything was just right there including the weapons he kept stashed around his room, besides he wasn't sure why his friends insisted on having rooms large enough to home about thirty people. 

When they got to Skwisgaar's room the two of them undressed and climbed onto the large white bed. Toki lay facing him, he played with the ends of the older man's wavy light colored hair. Skwisgaar's fingers danced over the scars peeking over his bicep.

“What sort of things did you want to tell me?” Toki asked curiously.

“Really bad things about myself.”

He wasn't sure what qualified as bad; everybody had their own definition and it very rarely matched another persons. There was plenty he knew about Skwisgaar and plenty that he didn't know, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to hear more of the bad though.

“Do you still want to tell me?”

“I'm scared to, but I hate keeping it to myself.”

“I won't judge you or anything.”

He wouldn't, he never judged his friends over their pasts. Skwisgaar didn't like sharing parts of himself, it didn't help that his friends barely reacted the times that he had tried before.

“Okay. It's, it's about when I lost my virginity....I was really young, barely a teenager. This older lady my mom knew came over and while my mom was out.” Skwisgaar stopped speaking, he let out a shaky breath then laughed nervously.

“She had been drinking and.....watching me. She had me get her another drink and when I came back she started touching me, when I tried to pull away she grabbed me and....She pinned me down on the couch and-I told my mom everything when she came back. She didn't believe me, she hit me and called me a liar. I was so scared, I was scared that woman would do that to me again, or if she didn't then somebody else would. It made me feel so fucking disgusting and dirty.”

“God, Skwisgaar that's....That's terrible”

He didn't know what to say or how to respond, he couldn't think of very much to do. He wrapped his arms around the older man pulling him close to him, Skwisgaar buried his face against his chest and cried. Toki combed his fingers through his hair.

“I spent so much fucking time as I got older just letting people use me, it's what I've always been good at. Just like my god damn mom. I don't have anything else, just sex and guitar. I'm fucking useless.”

“No you're not, you aren't useless or disgusting. You're none of those things, what she did to you was disgusting, and your mom should have been there for you. She should have done something.”

“That's why I don't even think I should be with you, I never should have been. I don't deserve to be with somebody or be loved or happy. I fucking suck at it, I don't know how to handle it.”

Toki kissed the top of his head, Skwisgaar looked up at him.

“Stop being so mean to yourself, you've been through a lot. You have a lot to offer, I want to be with you, because I'm in love with you. Things are going to get better now, okay?”

The older man nodded in response. The brown haired man moved so that he was laying on his back, Skwisgaar rest his head against his chest. He moved his hand across his skin until his fingers touched the scar on his side from where Magnus had stabbed him. If it were anybody else touching him there he would be flinching away from them, but this made him feel loved.

“I feel like an idiot, all of this crying.”

“You cry a lot, you're an emotional guy.” Toki commented, he smirked when Skwisgaar glared up at him.

“Am not, I've just been.....Stressed.”

He could point out that that didn't explain the dozens of other times he remembered the blond crying or looking like he was going to break down crying, but he refrained. He was enjoying the comfort of having another person with him, specifically who the other person was. Toki placed a hand on the older man's back rubbing over smooth skin until he hit an area that didn't feel as smooth. His index finger ran along the mark, it went in an almost perfect circle.

“What's that?”

“Magnus did that” Skwisgaar responded casually.

“What did he do to you?”

“He got really mad during one of our practice sessions and put a cigarette out on my back. Hurt like fuck.”

“Asshole. I should have listened to you guys about him, you were right.”

If he'd admitted that or realized that over a year ago then none of this would have happened. Magnus would have just wasted more of his miserable life hating some guy he didn't even know.

“I probably shouldn't have been such a douche bag about it....Probably would have helped if we'd actually told you why we kicked him out of the band.”

Toki moved his hand from the mark on Skwisgaar's back up to his hair again.

“So we're agreed we all handled things really badly.”

“Yeah we're complete idiots who fuck up, a lot.”

One of the many reasons the five of them managed to get along so well.

“Where do you want to go from here?” 

Skwisgaar looked up at him as he thought over the question.

“I want to make everything up to you, have a real relationship if that could even work out, and treat you better. No more of the way that things used to be.”

“So no more insulting me when I play guitar?”

“I don't insult, I critique.”

Toki rolled his eyes, “Critiquing doesn't end with you yelling and pouring a bucket of blood over my head.”

“I still think you over reacted to that.”

The younger man smiled, Skwisgaar smiled back at him; he leaned up kissing him.

“I love you even if you're a selfish prick sometimes.” Toki whispered.

“I love you too Tokis”

He lay his head back down on his chest, he fell asleep to the feeling of talented fingers combing through his hair. They both finally were beginning to feel like they were back home again.


	17. Restroom Make Out Sessions

Pickles didn't get to see Nathan for most of the night when they went out to drink and escape the tension at Mordhaus. He figured it was mostly to distance himself as much as possible from their moody guitarists, but after Pickles finally got Toki to go and talk to Skwisgaar he grew bored. Not like sitting there listening to the Norwegian talk about how much he hated the lead guitarist had been overly entertaining, he was happy to see them talking again. There was no way he was going to go another day with them like that, it was getting on his nerves.

“Hey, so they're talking now?”

He turned to see Nathan standing at his side, he was watching the two Scandinavians. 

“Looks like it”

“How did you manage that?” Nathan asked looking back at Pickles.

“Gave Toki his phone back, let him see all those sappy messages Skwisgaar had been sending him.”

The younger man grunted in response, Pickles gave one more glance at his two friends before turning his full attention onto the band's front man. He smirked when Nathan placed a hand on his leg.

“I checked and uh there's nobody in the bathroom so maybe we could.....You know go make out or something.” The larger man suggested, he shrugged and pulled his hand away.

“Be more than happy to.”

Pickles got up and followed Nathan into the restroom. The moment that they got the door closed Nathan had Pickles pinned back against the wall, he cupped his face in his hands drawing him in and kissing him hard. The drummer could taste the over priced whiskey on his lips and the singer could taste beer when his tongue slipped into the older man's mouth. Pickles pulled at the front of Nathan's shirt pulling him closer until the taller man's body was pressed against him, his friend's hands grabbed at his ass squeezing. The red head allowed himself to be lifted up off of the floor, he wrapped his legs around his friend's waist. Nathan bit hard at his bottom lip making him groan, he ground against him his erection rubbing against his stomach. The younger man smirked against his lips. Pickles wrapped his arms around his neck, fingers tangling in black hair. They kissed hard, hungrily, Nathan's hands slipping down the back of his jeans. 

“Fuck you asshole!”

The two broke apart at the sound of their bassist screaming out in the main part of the bar. The sound of his slurred yelling was followed by the sound of something breaking followed by more yelling.

“That's it get out, you're banned.”

“You can't ban me you fat fucking asshole.”

Pickles hit his head back against the wall closing his eyes and sighing heavily.

“God damn it Murderface. Alright let's go.”

Nathan set the older man back down onto the ground. They left the bathroom to go see what damage the bassist had done. They found him being restrained by a large blond haired bouncer, it looked like for the second time in that year alone he had been punched in the face. A woman and what appeared to be her boyfriend stood glaring at him.

“Hey uh we'll just take him, we've got it.” Pickles said as he approached the man holding onto their still struggling and cursing bassist.

“You can't bring him back here again, got it?”

“Yeah sure thing chief, promise.”

The blond haired man released the pudgier male, Nathan grabbed him roughly by his arm and dragged him towards the door with Pickles trailing behind them.

“Fuck this place, fucking bitch and her stupid boyfriend. How the fuck was I supposed to know she had a boyfriend?”

“Did she say she had one?” Pickles asked

“Yeah, but I figured she was fucking making it up.”

“Ugh God you really need to stop getting us kicked out of fucking bars, that's the eighth one this year you fucking prick.”

“Douche bag.” Pickles muttered, he was less annoyed about being banned from another bar and more so annoyed that their tantrum throwing bassist had interrupted his bathroom make out session.

“Hey, where the fuck is douche bag and dildo licker?” Nathan asked glancing around the lot.

Pickles looked around until he spotted the two at the side of the building, kissing.

“Looks like that's them over there.” The drummer answered nodding in the direction.

Nathan looked and grunted grossed out.

“Fuck, gross....Hey assholes we're fucking going, come on!”

“Least they're talking again.” 

“I really don't fucking need that mental image.”

Not like Pickles needed to see two of his friends making out like teenagers outside of a bar at two in the morning, but it was better than their game of avoidance and beating the living shit out of each other.

When they got back home Murderface promptly passed out on the coffee table, Skwisgaar and Toki left and Pickles was pretty sure he saw them holding hands. Nathan followed Pickles to his room. The drummer flopped down on his bed; he attempted to remove his jeans, but the room was spinning and it seemed like way too much effort to take his pants off. He did manage the feat of sitting up long enough to take his shirt off and throw it across the room. Nathan didn't bother with removing anything other than his boots and socks, he lay down next to the drummer with just as much grace causing the bed to creak. Pickles figured he should probably get a new one sometime, he didn't think this one was going to last all that much longer. 

He closed his eyes when he was sure that the spinning of his room was going to make him puke. Nathan was touching him, it felt nice. He moaned and tilted his hips up when the singer's hand reached the top of his jeans. He was disappointed when he moved his hand back up, for a moment he felt tense and uncomfortable when the younger man was touching his wrist. He was too drunk to really say anything or to pull away from Nathan's grasp. Pickles groaned when he felt the younger man start to pull the band from his wrist. Cool air hit against sweat stained skin that rarely got to breathe, he felt rough fingers go over the under side of his wrist as lightly as they could possibly manage.

“Dude don't” Pickles muttered, he tried to pull away, but Nathan kept a firm hold.

The drummer opened his eyes and moved so that he could better see his friend. Nathan was looking at the thin red lines on his wrist. Nothing new, they weren't new; not very new.

“When did you do this?”

“I don't know, it was awhile ago. Just, it's cool.”

He was too drunk to have this conversation, but Nathan was fixated.

“You said you wouldn't do this shit anymore.”

“I know, I know I fucked up. I'm sorry, alright?”

The singer's thumb kept going over the marks on his skin. He looked worried. Pickles finally managed to pull out of his grasp, he brushed his knuckles against the younger man's cheek. Nathan met his eyes, the older man smiled and moved closer so he could kiss him.

“It's fine, I'm fine. Just a fucking slip, new day, and all that other shit. It won't happen again.”

He couldn't really swear to that, but the puppy dog eyes thing was killing him. He didn't like letting him down, if he was lucky Nathan wouldn't remember finding out Pickles had relapsed by the morning.

“Promise?”

“Yeah I promise, love you.”

The worry faded from his eyes replaced by something calmer, better. That was better. 

Nathan kissed him gently pushing him onto his back, his hand roamed over his body as they kissed lazily. Pickles moaned when the younger man's hand found its way down the front of his jeans and started stroking him. He moaned against his lips, fingers tangling in his hair as he bucked up into his hand. He bit Nathan's lip when he felt his thumb go over the tip of his cock. He felt himself getting closer to cumming as the younger man stroked him faster, his grip firmer than it was before as he worked to bring him to the edge. He came moaning his friend's name against his lips, he smirked and kissed him one more time before laying back down on the bed. Nathan removed his own shirt wiping his hand off on the black material then tossing it onto the foot of the bed. He lay on his side pulling the drummer close against him.

“I love you too asshole”


	18. It's a Start

Skwisgaar woke up to the feeling of a warm body pressed against his side, he opened his eyes and looked down at the brown haired guitarist. This was how he was supposed to wake up; not alone or to complete strangers who only cared about what he could give to them. He pet his fingers through the younger man's hair, Toki lifted his head from against his stomach and looked up at him smiling.

“Hey”

“Hey”

The rhythm guitarist pressed his lips against his skin, Skwisgaar liked the feeling of his lips against his skin. He liked being touched by him, because he honestly accepted him which was so much more than strange men and women ever offered him. Skwisgaar found himself smiling fondly down at him, he was attractive, and sweet. He didn't want to think too hard about if he deserved this or him or to feel this happy. He was too involved with the younger man kissing his stomach, calloused fingers gently caressed his skin going over a body that had lost a bit too much weight in the past months. Toki moved up and kissed him, he bit and tugged at Skwisgaar's lip; he pulled back smirking down at him. The older man placed a hand on the back of his neck, he propped himself up on his elbow and drew his friend down kissing him passionately. Skwisgaar rolled them over so that he was on top, he kissed down along his neck biting into his skin. His tongue flicked over the marks left from his teeth and over a scar he hadn't really looked at all that often before. He placed a hand on Toki's stomach moving it downwards until he reached his half hard cock, he took hold of his erection and began stroking him. The younger man arched his back off of the bed, he bit his lip to keep from moaning too loudly. Skwisgaar's tongue ran over his left nipple then the right, he moved back up to his mouth kissing him hard. He circled the head of his cock with his thumb then swiped it over the tip, he moved his hand down over his balls slowly trailing his fingers over them causing his partner's body to jerk in response. Toki took hold of his shoulders pushing him back onto the bed. 

Skwisgaar smirked up at him, his fingers played with the ends of his slightly longer brown hair. He watched with half lidded eyes as his partner kissed down his body until he came to his cock. Toki sat back on his knees looking up curiously at the older man.

“That's new” He said in reference to the piercing at the head of the older man's cock.

“Yeah that's, I don't really remember getting it. Just woke up with it one day.”

Skwisgaar vaguely remembered a tattoo shop that Murderface had dragged him into, he was too drunk at the time to question why in Hell the bassist was so insistent that he got his dick pierced. After the initial discomfort and pain he found the piercing was rather pleasurable.

Toki pushed at the ring rolling it, Skwisgaar moaned and bucked his hips in response to the pleasure he felt at the touch. The brunette glanced up at him.

“Does it feel good?”

“Y-yeah” He breathed.

He watched as the younger man lowered his head until his mouth was just barely an inch away from his cock. He could feel his warm breath against his heated skin and it made his cock twitch, when mismatched blue eyes locked on his and the tip of his tongue flicked his piercing he felt like he could cum. Toki kept a firm grip on the base of his cock, he stroked up then back down; he took the head of Skwisgaar's cock into his mouth sucking lightly. His tongue played over the piercing rotating it, he went from the piercing to his slit, he moved his head downwards taking half of the older guitarist's cock into his mouth sucking harder. Skwisgaar's fingers tangled themselves in his hair pushing, his partner hummed around his length making him jerk his hips, Toki pulled back then pushed back down until he had him down to the hilt. He moved back up again, tongue flicking against the metal ring, and then all the way off. He placed a hand on Skwisgaar's inner thigh and by instinct the older man spread his legs. Toki ran his tongue up along his inner thigh, the ends of his hair brushed against his groin. Skwisgaar found any dominance he felt sexually generally melted when it came to Toki, he could go from dominant to submissive in a heart beat. He noticed early on that the younger musician liked having control over things, liked having at least this much control over the older guitarist. Skwisgaar didn't mind, right now he wanted to beg.

Toki's tongue ran over his balls then around the base of his cock, if he kept that up the blond haired man was sure he would end up cumming.

“Gods Toki, please. Please fuck me, I need this.”

The brunette moved up a bit, he kissed his stomach.

“You really miss me this much?” He asked voice low, rough.

Skwisgaar's fingers were in his hair again, he just needed to touch him; to feel him. Toki took hold of his hand bringing it to his lips and kissing the top of it.

“Yes, I missed you so fucking much.”

Anything, anything in the world he would give him. He just needed him on him, he needed him in his bed, by his side, and in his life. 

Toki pressed his lips against his kissing him lovingly, Skwisgaar placed his hands on his back feeling the rough patches of scarred skin. Toki smiled against his lips at the feeling of those fingers touching places nobody else was allowed to. He pulled away and grabbed the bottle of lube from beneath the pillow. He looked down at the older guitarist.

“Your sex life is way too active when you keep lube like literally right here.” The younger man said smiling.

“It's easy access, it'll come in handy a lot for the two of us.” Skwisgaar responded, he placed a hand on Toki's hip rubbing small circles along what looked like scratch marks over his hip bone.

Toki moved back between Skwisgaar's legs, the blond haired man wrapped his legs around his back his hips lifting up off of the bed. The younger man coated his fingers with lube and sat the bottle to the side. He carefully pushed one finger inside of his partner, he worked it slowly in and out of him then added a second pushing deeper until he was pressing against his prostate. The taller man's hips jerked in response to the touch, he moaned and begged to be touched there again, and his friend was more than happy to comply with that request. His fingers stroked against that spot inside of him until the older man was a complete mess, head tossed back against the bed and too loud moans echoing off of the walls of his impossibly large bedroom. Toki kissed against the front of his neck then lightly bit his shoulder as he pulled his fingers out from inside of him. Skwisgaar lifted his head, he opened his eyes and stared up at the younger man. He watched as he coated his own cock with lube, he only felt the slightest bit of discomfort when Toki pushed inside of him. The dark haired man was considerate, he stopped half way inside then pulled out before pushing in again this time going all the way. When the tip of his cock hit against that spot it worked to turn discomfort into something pleasurable, Skwisgaar pushed down against him, and his legs tightened around his back drawing his body closer to him. Toki leaned down kissing him hard, he tangled his fingers in the older man's hair tugging making him moan. He pulled out and pushed in this time his hips working at a better pace, something deeper that hit just right. 

Skwisgaar moaned his name and begged for more, his nails clawed at his back leaving red marks that his boyfriend was more than happy to adorn for the short time that they would be there. He thrust into him harder as he picked up his pace, he pulled harder at Skwisgaar's hair making him expose more of his neck to him. He kissed and bit at pale flesh leaving marks as he moved down then back up, he leaned his forehead against Skwisgaar's. The older man placed a hand on the back of his neck holding him there, he kissed him hungrily moaning and whimpering when the shorter man pulled out then thrust into him harder striking that spot again with more force. He found himself moving against him, he needed him; he needed to feel all of him. The nails that were now digging into his hips made him groan, the sharp teeth tugging at his lip, and the ice colored lust filled eyes staring down at him made him feel fucking adored for whatever pathetic creature he really was on the inside. He moaned Toki's name when a hand wrapped around his cock stroking him, when his hand moved upwards his fingers played with his piercing drawing him closer to the edge. Skwisgaar came into his hand, he closed his eyes tightly and his legs tightened their grip. The younger man's thrusts became quicker, more sporadic as he reached his own orgasm cumming inside of his boyfriend. He buried his face against his chest moaning his name and curses in Norwegian as he came inside of him. He stayed still for a moment or two before removing himself, he moved so that he lay beside of the blond haired man. Skwisgaar kissed the top of his head, he wrapped an arm around his shoulders gently touching his scars.

“I love you” Skwisgaar whispered.

“I love you too Skwis”

The two of them remained there long enough to catch their breath and get enough energy to get up. Skwisgaar watched as the younger musician got up and grabbed his pants from the floor pulling them on.

“I'll be back, I have to go take my meds. Meet you in the bath tub?” 

“Sure” 

It was odd. Skwisgaar looked at him with his just shoulder length never evenly cut brown hair, his lightly tanned skin, and he saw the boy who he had met years ago. The one who had run away from an abusive home and needed a new place where he could feel welcomed. When he looked into his eyes, one a bright icy blue and the other faded and worn he saw somebody who had seen more hell than anybody so young should ever have to experience. It was strange, even unnerving, but in a way it made him love him more. After Toki left the room Skwisgaar got up and went to the bathroom getting the tub ready. 

He climbed into the tub, the warm water felt nice. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, it wasn't too much longer until Toki climbed into the tub with him. The younger musician leaned back against him, Skwisgaar opened his eyes. They sat in silence for the longest time, Skwisgaar washed himself then worked on the other musician. He carefully washed over the scar on his side from Magnus, he noticed a lot of scars from Magnus. He wanted to guilt himself, but told himself not to; he couldn't go back and change any of that now. He could only work on the now and the now included being with somebody he hadn't thought he would see again.

Toki felt relaxed as Skwisgaar washed over his scars. At one point his therapist had told him it might be an intimacy issue that kept him from letting people touch the scars, it was either that or deep rooted shame. He never felt comfortable enough to tell her that he did in fact let somebody touch his scars and it wasn't shame or issues with intimacy. Just like he didn't tell her that every morning when he had to go through all of those pills and shots he felt less than alive, just like he was existing because of medications and nothing more. Life made him feel dead anymore. He had so many flaws and so many problems that he couldn't count them all. He still feared seeing Magnus around every corner, standing in door ways, he feared waking up with that metal collar around his neck. If he woke up to find this wasn't real he was pretty sure he would go insane more than he probably already was. His therapist always talked so calmly like this was normal, this was usual; it was just PTSD. He had a lot of it, enough to share with a thousand different people and God he would. He didn't like it, he didn't like living this way. He had hated the lack of sleep in the past month; jolting awake because of nightmares or due to sounds that used to be so normal but now signaled that he could possibly be killed. He felt paranoid, but the pills were supposed to fix that. The ones that made him hungry or made him throw up when he did get himself to eat, the ones that kept his eye from hurting and kept migraines away. 

Life was hard, his life was hard, and he wasn't sure that hard even covered that. He felt cursed to wear his scars; people didn't have to see his back, his arms, or any of those other scars that clothing easily hid. They could see his face, they could see his eye, and the way people looked at him they didn't really work to hide the fact that they did indeed notice. He hated it. It made him feel disgusting.

Lips pressed against his shoulder blade, fingers lightly rubbed over the wound in his side and a deep voice whispered to him telling him he was beautiful and he was loved so damn much. Toki felt like he could cry, if it wouldn't look crazy he would have. He took hold of Skwisgaar's hand holding it. This. This one thing, this one person found him beautiful, accepted him, and wanted to move the world just to fucking make him happy. Skwisgaar had problems and a part of him still hurt and still was mad at him, but he knew what kind of person his friend really was. The person who used to get scared and very emotional anytime Toki got too depressed and talked of suicide, the same person who cried over him when he was hurt or when he thought he was going to lose him for good. Skwisgaar cared about him, he loved him. It was a powerful, tragic, beautiful, and overwhelming feeling. It wasn't going to cure his depression, it wasn't going to make him stop expecting to see Magnus around every corner, and it wasn't going to make him stop hiding from people. Love didn't fix or cure his problems, it didn't change the world and make it all better; he knew that, hard lessons taught him that in the most brutal of ways. The only thing this feeling of being needed, wanted, and loved gave him was a hope that he would get better in time. That he wasn't going to have to go through all of this alone and that this one person was going to be by his side holding his hand through this until the world went to wherever it was meant to go in the end.


End file.
